









pwja^>»y 





PLAN OF VIENNA, WITH THE TURKISH APPROACHES. 



THE 



SIEGES OF YIENNA 



THE TUKES. 



FROxM THE GERMAN OF 

KARL AUGUST *SCHIMMER, 

AND OTHER SOURCES. 



Think with what passionate delight 

The tale was told in Christian halls. 
How Sobieski turned to flight 

The Muslim from Vienna's walls. 
How, when his horse triumphant trod 

The burghers' richest robes upon, 
The ancient words rose loud — From God 

A man was sent, whose name was John." 

Falin Leaves^ hy Richard Monckton Milnes. 



LONDON: " 

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 

1847. 



JI3^^ 



<: 



3 



London : Prmted by W. Clowes and Sons, Stamford Streef. 









/ 



PREFACE. 



/c>^ 



^ 



The narrative specified in the Title from which the fol- 
lowing pages are in general borrowed, and in great part 
translated, is the work of a gentleman resident in Vienna, 
and enjoying as such access to the numerous and valuable 
sources of information extant in the archives of that city. 
Ihe (1 ler sources to which I have adverted in the title-page, 
^jd ^i Mch I have used for purposes of addition and verifica- 
. : e principally the well-known Turkish ' History of Von 
Hammer ;' ' The Life of Sobieski, by the French Abbe Coyer ;' 
the ' History of Poland, by Monsieur de Salvandy ;' and the 
invaluable volume of 'John Sobieski's Letters, translated from 
the Polish by the Count Plater.' I may add that, as many 
of the rarer printed tracts of the time, cited by Mr. Schim- 
mer, are to be found in the British Museum, I have not 
failed to avail myself of the assistance of my friend Mr. 
Panizzi for their examination. Towards the close of my 
labour, and in fact through the narrative of the second siege, 
I have been less faithful as a translator than in the earlier 
portion. The introduction of such a character as Sobieski 
on the scene will be my apology to Mr. Schimmer for this 
divergence, and for the insertion of such matter as I have 
ventured to embroider on the ground of his narrative. Of 



PREFACE. 



the letters of John Sobieski I have spoken my opinion in the 
text. The style of the Abbe Coyer seems to me such as 
might entitle his biography of Sobieski to take rank with 
Voltaire's Charles XII. and other standard works as a class 
book for students of the French language. I am in- 
debted to Monsieur de Salvandy for some details of the 
great battle for the relief of Vienna which have escaped the 
notice of Ulric and the other German narrators. 



TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, 



THE TURKS. 



CHAPTER I. 

The fall of Constantinople in 1453 was followed by a rapid 
extension of the arms and power of the conqueror, Mahomet 
IL Within a short period he subjected Persia, the whole 
of Greece and the Morea, most of the islands of the Archipelago, 
and Trebisond on the coast of Asia Minor, the seat of the Greek 
empire of the Comnenes. The last of that dynasty, Daniel 
Comnenus, he took prisoner, and shortly after caused him with 
his family to be execujted for the alleged offence, probably a 
mere pretext, of an understanding with the Persians. In 1467 
Mahomet took from the Venetians, in addition to several pos- 
sessions in the Morea, the island of Euboea, and, in 1474, Caffa 
from the Genoese. The hostilities in which he was soon after- 
wards involved with Persia hindered him from further pursuing 
his conquests against the Christian powers, who on their side 
were prevented by their unhappy dissensions and divisions from 
attempting to retrieve their losses. In general their campaigns 
against the Turks were confined to purely defensive opera- 
tions, and it was not till a much later period that common 
need and danger produced a more general system of aggres- 
sive action. In 1480 Mahomet II. attacked the island of 
Rhodes, the conquest of which he had it much at heart to ac- 
complish ; he was, however, repulsed with great loss by its de- 
fenders, the Knights of St. John. Upon this repulse he directed 
his arms against Italy, took Otranto, and would probably have 

B 



2 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. i. 

pushed his conquests further in that country, if death had not 
overtaken him, on an expedition to Persia, in 1481. He had 
overthrown two empires and ten other sovereignties, and cap- 
tured more than 200 cities. He directed as an inscription for 
his tomb the following sentence, simple, but significant to his 
successors : — '^ I wished to take Rhodes and subdue Italy." His 
two immediate successors, Bajazet II., who reigned from 1481 to 
1512, and Selim I. (1512 to 1520), prosecuted schemes of con- 
quest in various directions. The latter was in particular the 
founder of an extensive naval power, before which those of 
Venice and Genoa, so considerable at that time, were compelled 
to quail. He conquered also Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, 
and Egypt, and reduced to subjection the powerful Sheikh of 
Mecca. In wisdom, however, in power, and in glory, this Soli- 
man was surpassed by his son, the second of that name, the great- 
est of the Ottoman sovereigns, under whom the Turkish empire 
attained a pitch of splendour which has not been equalled before 
or since. In acquirements he was far beyond his age and country : 
in addition to the Turkish language, he was master of Persian 
and Arabic ; he also understood Italian ; and in that kind of 
metrical compositions which are called, in Turkish, Misen, the 
critics of that country pronounced him to exceed all others. In 
military achievements he was equally distinguished among the 
sovereigns of his race, and ranks with Mahomet II. as a con- 
queror. In the first year of his reign, he acquired in Belgrade 
the key of the Danube, and opened the way for his further ad- 
vance into Hungary. In the following year, 1522, he carried 
into execution the unaccomplished wish and dying injunction of 
Mahomet II. in the subjection of Rhodes, and on Christmas- 
night held his triumphant entry into the conquered city. Soon 
afterwards he directed his forces again upon Hungary, in w hich 
country internal dissensions afforded him a favourable oppor- 
tunity for the furtherance of his plans of conquest. 

King Louis II. of Hungary, the feeble successor of hi^ illus- 
trious father, Ladislaus II., had ascended the throne in 1516, 
under the guardianship of the Emperor Maximilian I., and of 
Sigisraund, King of Poland, his uncle. At the very commence- 
ment of his reign, an insurrection of his nobles threatened to 
deprive him of the throne. He had, moreover, mortally offended 



CHAP. I.] BY THE TURKS. 



the ambitious John Zapolya, Count of Zips, who held as wayvode 
the government of Transylvania, and excited him to the most 
destructive projects by passing him over on the occasion of the 
election to the office of Palatine.* This man, whose name, like 
that of Tekeli, is so intimately connected with the misfortunes 
of his country, was born in 1487, the son of Stephen Zapolya, 
one of the best officers of the great king and warrior Mathias 
Corvinus. Inheriting the rewards of his father's valour in the 
shape of vast possessions and important governments, he was 
distinguished through life by restless ambition, great talents for 
intrigue, and on some occasions by acts of inventive cruelty 
which exceed in extravagance of horror all that Suetonius has 
related of the Roman emperors. By a reckless acceptance of 
Turkish aid, and by treachery as reckless to his engagements 
with that power, he partially succeeded in the great object of 
his adventurous life — his establishment on the throne of Hungary. 
He died a natural death in 1540, leaving an infant son, who 
succeeded him in the government of Transylvania, but who 
struggled in vain to establish himself in that of Hungary. With 
his death in 1570 this race of able and dangerous men fortu- 
nately became extinct. 

Soliman found little resistance to his invasion of Hungary. 
Peterwaradin and the Bannat fell quickly into his hands ; and on 
the 20th August, 1526, occurred that disastrous battle which in 
Hungary still bears the name of the Destruction of Mohacs. 
Zapolya remained with his forces motionless at Szegedin, careless 
of the fate of kingdom or king ; while the latter, with scarcely 
20,000 men and little artillery, stood opposed to a tenfold supe- 
rior force of the Turks. The wiser heads of the army advised 
the waiting for reinforcements, but they were overruled by Paul 
Timoreus, Archbishop of Koloeza, a man who seems to have 

* It is difficult to illustrate the very peculiar institutions of Hungary by 
reference to those of any other state, as I know of none which presents any 
near analogy to the office of Palatine. He is chosen by the king out of four 
magnates presented for election by the states of the kingdom. He represents 
the king, and is the constitutional mediator between him and his subjects in 
all matters at issue between them. As President of the highest court of 
appeal, he resembles our Lord Chancellor, and, like him, takes precedence of 
all subjects except the primate, the Archbishop of Gran. From 1765 to 
Joseph II/s death in 1790 the office remained vacant. It has since been 
usually filled bv an Austrian Archduke. — E. 

b2 



4 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap i. 

united every quality which could unfit him for either the sacred 
functions he had abandoned or those which he had assumed of 
military command. The arrival, still hoped for, of Zapolya, 
with the excellent cavalry of Transylvania, might have saved 
Hungary, but it would have deprived the prelate of the chief 
command ; and the latter preferred to risk his own life, that of 
the sovereign, and the fortunes of Hungary, in premature and 
unequal battle. In less than two hours Soliman had gained a 
complete victory ; the prelate paid the penalty of his presump- 
tion with his life, and with him perished the flower of the Hun- 
garian nobility, many of his episcopal brethren, and lastly the 
unfortunate King Louis himself, suffocated beneath his floundering 
horse, and borne down by the weight of his armour, in a swamp 
through which he was urging his flight. The jewels in which 
the plume of his helmet was set led ultimately to the discovery 
and identification of the body. Scarcely 4000 men, led by the 
Palatine Bathory, escaped under the cover of night from this 
disastrous battle. Soliman pushed forward his troops, intoxi- 
cated with success, as far as the Flatten and Neusiedler lake?, 
laid waste the country, and burnt Fiinf kirchen and Pesth. On 
the news, however, of disturbances in Asia, he suddenly retired, 
dragging with him 200,000 persons into captivity, but soon to 
re-appear in terrible power at the gates of Vienna itself. 

The circumstances of the succession to the throne of Hungary 
were well calculated to invite and facilitate that return. Upon 
the death of Louis without issue, in virtue of his double con- 
nexion by marriage with the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria 
(afterwards Emperor), and of a treaty concluded between his 
father Ladislaus and the House of Austria, the right to the 
throne devolved upon the latter, of which the Archduke was the 
representative. The royal widow, Mary, sister to Ferdinand, 
convoked, for the purpose of ratifying this arrangement, a diet 
at Presburgh, whither she had been compelled to fly when Pesth 
surrendered. Her intention, however, was frustrated by the 
counter measures of John Zapolya, who, after solemnizing the 
obsequies of Louis at Stuhlweissenburg, had, with the assent of 
many of the magnates, proclaimed himself king, and had caused 
himself to be crowned on the 11th November, 1526. He ap- 
pealed to an ancient law by which no one but a born Hungarian 



CHAP. I.] BY THE TURKS. 



could occupy the throne, although it had never been universally 
acknowledged, and had been set aside by the recent arrange- 
ments. Ferdinand now sent against him an army under the 
command of a brave man, Nicholas, Count of Salm, who de- 
feated him near Tokay. By the exertions of the faithful Pala- 
tine Bathory, a considerable party was created in favour of 
Ferdinand, and his coronation was celebrated at Pesth on the 
21st August, 1527. After two successive defeats at Erlau and 
Szinye, Zapolya was compelled to abandon Transylvania and 
to take refuge in Poland. The magnates of Hungary now came 
over in great numbers to the party of Ferdinand, and he rejoiced 
in the prospect of an undisturbed possession of his newly acquired 
sovereignty. Zapolya, however, though on all sides deserted, 
and destitute of troops and money, persevered in his designs, and 
made every exertion to gain over to his cause the nobility of 
Poland and their king, Sigismund, his brother-in-law by mar- 
riage with his sister Barbara. These attempts were in most 
instances fruitless ; but he succeeded with Jerome Laski, Way- 
vode of Siradia, a man of resource and enterprise, who showed 
hospitality to the fugitive, and promised him every possible sup- 
port. Laski, however, conscious of the inadequacy of his own 
means to effect his friend's restoration in opposition to .the 
House of Austria, gave him the deplorable advice to betake 
himself to the Sultan. We are assured by several contem- 
porary writers that Zapolya long hesitated to follow this 
fatal counsel ; and it is not incredible that he felt some com- 
punction in throwing himself into the arms of the arch enemy 
of Christianity, and in possibly exposing half Europe to Maho- 
metan invasion. The condition, however, of his affairs, and his 
ambition, urged him to the desperate step, which was somewhat 
reconciled to his conscience by the knowledge that Ferdinand 
himself had despatched an embassy to Constantinople to con- 
ciliate the good will of the Sultan. Zapolya overlooked the 
distinction that Ferdinand's object was to establish peace, while 
his own was to kindle a desolating war of race and religion. So 
soon as his resolution was adopted, Laski undertook in person 
a journey to Constantinople, accompanied by a renegade Vene- 
tian, Ludovico Gritti, who served him as interpreter. He found 
ready audience from the Sultan, who asked for nothing better 



r> TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap, i 

than pretext and opportunity to lead his hitherto unconquered 
forces into the heart of Christendom. The Sultan had also been 
highly irritated by the injudicious behaviour of Ferdinand's 
envoy, a Hungarian named Hobordansky, who had chosen this 
unpropitious juncture to demand not merely the unconditional 
recognition of Ferdinand as king of Hungary, but also to insist 
with violence on the restoration of Belgrade and Jaicza. De- 
mands such as these, addressed in peremptory language to a 
sovereign flushed with recent conquest, produced their immediate 
and natural consequences in facilitating the designs of Zapolya. 
A treaty was without delay concluded, by which Soliman under- 
took to effect his restoration to the throne of Hungary. Zapolya, 
by secret articles of this compact, engaged in return not merely 
to pay an annual tribute in money, but to place every ten years 
at the disposal of the Sultan a tenth part of the population of 
Hungary, of both sexes, and to afford for ever free passage 
through the kingdom to the Ottoman forces. At the same time 
Soliman dismissed the envoys of Ferdinand with the menace 
" that he would soon come to drive the latter out of a kingdom 
which he had unjustly acquired ; that he would look for him on 
the field of Mohaes, or even in Pesth ; and should Ferdinand 
shrink from meeting him at either, he would offer him battle 
under the walls of Vienna itself." It was thus that through 
treason in one quarter, ill-timed audacity in another, and the 
restless spirit of conquest and progression which the Turks 
derived from their Tartar origin, the crisis arrived so pregnant 
with evil consequences to an important portion of Christian 
Europe. 



CHAP. II,] BY THE TURKS. 



CHAPTER II. 



From 1527 to September 11, 1529. 



The Turkish preparations were pushed forward with great vigour, 
and in a short time an immense army was assembled in the great 
plain of Philippopolis. Although the Sultan had originally 
formed the intention of marching with it in person, he never- 
theless appointed to its command his famous Grand Vizier and 
favourite Ibrahim. This man was by birth a Greek, of moderate 
stature, dark complexion, and had been in infancy sold as a slave 
to Soliman. He soon by his intelligence, his musical talents, 
his aspiring and enterprising spirit, won the favour of his 
master, and after Soliman 's accession to the throne participated 
with him in the exercise of the highest powers of the state, in 
the character of Vizier, brother-in-law, friend, and favourite, 
and enjoyed such distinctions as neither Turkish favourite nor 
minister has ever before or since attained. He not only often 
interchanged letters with his master, but frequently his clothes, 
slept in the same chamber, had his own seraglio in the Hippo- 
drome, and his own colour, sky-blue, for the livery of his pages 
and for his standard. He insisted in his communications with 
Ferdinand on the title of brother and cousin. In a Latin verse 
which he addressed to the Venetian ambassador, he signified that 
while his master had the attributes of Jupiter, he himself was 
the Caesar of the world. Yet all this exaltation was destined to 
the usual termination of the career of an Oriental favourite. 
He was murdered in 1536 by command of Soliman, on suspicion 
of a design to place himself on the throne. 

Soliman had intended to put his army in motion in 1528, but 
his stores were destroyed, and his arrangements paralysed by 
rains of such extraordinary violence, that the troops, and even 
his own person, were endangered. A year's respite was thus 
afforded to the Austrians, — the more valuable to them because, as 



8 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. ii. 

ail accounts concur in stating, they had in the first instance 
placed little reliance on the accounts of the Turkish prepara- 
tions for war, and had entertained a very unreasonable disbelief 
in any serious intention on the part of Soliman to carry his me- 
naces into execution. The threats and vaunting of Oriental 
despots may generally be received with much allowance for gran- 
diloquence ; but in this instance Ferdinand should have remem- 
bered that the sovereign who uttered them had already once 
overrun Hungary to the frontiers of Austria, and had good 
reason, from past experience, to anticipate success in a renewed 
invasion. On the 10th of April, 1529, the Sultan left Constan- 
tinople at the head of an army of at least 200,000 men. Zapolya, 
on his part, was not idle. He applied to nearly all the powers 
of Europe, not excepting even the Pope, Clement YIT, whom 
he knew to be at this period on bad terms with the Emperor, 
urging them to support what he termed his just cause. These 
applications were unavailing ; the Pope replied by excommuni- 
cating him, by exhorting the magnates of Hungary to the support 
of Ferdinand, and by urging the latter to draw the sword without 
delay in defence of Christendom. 

Zapolya, supported by the money of some Polish nobles, and 
by some bands of Turkish freebooters, pushed forward early in 
April into Hungary at the head of about 2000 men, summoning 
on all sides the inhabitants to his support. Near Kaschan, how- 
ever, he was attacked and completely routed by the Austrian 
commander Da Rewa. Meanwhile the Turkish army advanced 
without other hindrance than heavy rains and the natural diffi- 
culties of the passes of the Balkan, and by the end of June had 
eifected the passage of the rivers of Seryia, and had crossed the 
Hungarian frontier. Before the main body marched a terrible 
advanced guard of 30,000 men, spreading desolation in every 
direction. Their leader was a man worthy of such command of 
bloodthirsty barbarians, the terrible Mihal Oglou, whose ancestor, 
Kose Mihal, or Michael of the Pointed Beard, derived his origin 
from the imperial race of the. Palaeologi, and on the female side 
was related to the royal houses of France and Savoy. His de- 
scendants were hereditary leaders of those wild and terrible bands 
of horsemen called by the Turks " Akindschi," i. e. " hither 
streaming," or " overflowing ;" by the Italians, " Guastadori/' 



CHAP. ii.J BY THE TURKS. 



the spoilers ; by the French, 'Taucheurs" and " Ecorcheurs/' 
mowers and flayers ; but by the Germans universally " Sackman," 
possibly because they filled their own sacks with plunder, or 
emptied those of other people. Whether this explanation be 
correct or not, it is certain that the name long retained its 
terrors in Austria, and that down to the beginning of the 
eighteenth century mothers used it to frighten their unruly 
children. 

Meanwhile Zapolya, encouraged by the progress of the Turk, 
had ventured his own person in an advance upon Hungary ; many 
of his old adherents joined his standard, and he collected an 
army of some 6000 men, with which he came on to join the 
Sultan. The meeting took place in the field of Mohacs. Zapolya 
was received with acclamation by the Turks, and with presents 
and other marks of honour by the Sultan, whose hand he kissed 
in homage for the sovereignty of Hungary. The Sultan assured 
him of his future protection, and awarded him among other 
royal honours a body-guard of Janissaries. After the army had 
refreshed itself it proceeded slowly, occupying the fortified places 
to the right and left ; and in thirteen days after its departure from 
Mohacs the Sultan's tents were pitched in the vineyards of Pesth, 
the inhabitants of which had for the most part fled either to 
Vienna or Poland. The garrison consisted of only about a thou- 
sand German and Hungarian soldiers, under Thomas Nadasky, 
who in the first instance showed the best disposition towards a 
manful defence. The Turks, however, after continuing a well- 
sustained fire from the neighbouring heights for four days, were 
proceeding — although no breach had been effected — to storm the 
defences, when the courage of the garrison failed them. The 
latter, with the few remaining inhabitants, retired into the 
citadel, and the Turks occupied the town. Nadasky was firmly 
resolved to hold out to the last, with the view of delaying as long 
as possible the advance of the enemy ; but the soldiers had lost 
all courage, and preferred to obey two of their German officers, 
who entered into a capitulation with the Turks, and answered 
Nadasky's remonstrances by putting him into confinement. The 
Vizier rejoiced at the prospect of removing an obstacle which 
might have materially afifected the ulterior plan of his campaign 
at so advanced a period of the season, and eagerly accepted the 



10 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. ii. 

conditions, promising them life and liberty ; and thus by mutiny 
and treason was the fortress surrendered on the 7th September. 
The traitors soon found reason to repent their crime. The event 
was one which, in justice to the Sultan, demands a close investi- 
gation, for the naked circumstances were such as to fix a stigma 
of bad faith on that sovereign, who, however open to the charge 
of cruelty, w^as usually distinguished by a rigid and even mag- 
nanimous adherence to his word. In many accounts, contem- 
porary and later, he is accused in this instance of a reckless viola- 
tion of his promises. It is certain that the garrison was massacred, 
but there is reason to believe that this occurred neither with the 
sanction of the Sultan nor without provocation on the part of the 
victims. The Janissaries were in a temper bordering on mutiny 
on being disappointed of a general plunder of the fortress. Stones 
were flying at their officers, and the second in their command had 
been wounded. Through the ranks of these men the garrison had 
to defile amid expressions of contempt for their cowardice. A 
German soldier, irritated at this treatment, exclaimed that if he 
had been in command no surrender would have exposed them to 
it. This information being received, as might be expected, with 
redoubled insult, the stout German lost patience, and with his 
sword he struck a Janissary to the ground. The general mas- 
sacre which naturally ensued was certainly not by the order, and 
probably against the will, of the Sultan, as indeed the writer, 
Cantemir, a bitter enemy of the Turk, acknowledges. Not 
more than sixty men escaped this sweeping execution, part of 
whom escaped by flight and part were made prisoners. A proof, 
however, of Soliman's appreciation of honour and courage is to 
be found in the fact that he not only eulogized the fidelity and 
firmness of Nadasky, but dismissed him on his parole not to 
serve against the Turks during the war. This generosity is the 
more to be praised as it was exercised in the teeth of the resist- 
ance not only of the embittered Janissaries, but of the Hungarian 
traitors in the suite of Zapolya. The fortress was placed in the 
hands of that leader, who remained behind with a sufficient 
garrison in charge of it, while the Turkish army pursued its 
triumphant progress over the Austrian frontier. On the 14th 
September Zapolya was solemnly installed on the Hungarian 
throne, the ceremony being attended, however, on the part of 



CHAP. II.] BY THE TURKS. 11 

Soliman only by the Segbanbaschi, or second in command of the 
Janissaries, and by Soliman's commissioner in Hungary, the 
Venetian Gritti, whose name has been already mentioned. A 
Turkish commandant was left in the place, and the Pacha of 
Semendria, Mohammed Bey, was sent on in advance towards 
Vienna to obtain intelligence and clear the roads. 



12 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, Fchap. 



CHAPTER III. 

Before Soliman quitted Pesth he had issued a proclamation to 
the effect that '' Whosoever in Hungary should withhold obedi- 
ence and subjection from the Count John of Zips, Wayvode of 
Transylvania, whom the Sultan had named king, had replaced 
in the sovereignty, and had engaged himself to uphold, should 
be punished and extirpated with fire and sword ; but that those 
who should submit themselves should be stoutly protected, and 
maintained in the possession of their property and privileges." 
On the 21st of September, Soliman with his main army crossed 
the Raab at Altenburg in Hungary, and on the same day his 
advanced corps of plunderers and destroyers under Michael 
Oglou, after spreading terror far and wide around them, reached 
the neighbourhood of Vienna. It may be questioned whether 
the main objects of the campaign were promoted by tho employ- 
ment of this force. As a scourge to the defenceless portion of 
an enemy's country, none could be so effective ; but though terror 
may paralyze the resistance of the scattered and the weak, cruelty 
serves to excite the indignation and organize the resistance of 
those beyond its immediate reach ; and in the case of the Sack- 
m^n cruelty was combined with a reckless treachery, which was 
laid to the account ahd affixed to the reputation of the general 
body of the invaders and their great leader, in some instances 
hardly with justice. Contemporary writers have exhausted their 
powers of language in describing the atrocities perpetrated by 
these marauders. We find, for example, in a rare pamphlet of 
the time,* the following : " At which time did the Sackman 
spread himself on every side, going before the Turkish army, 
destroying and burning everything, and carrying off into captivity 
much people, men and women, and even tlie children, of whom 

* " The Besieging of the City of Vienna in Austria by the cruel Tyrant 
and Destroyer of Christendom, the Turkish Emperor, as it lately befell, in 
the Month of September, 1529." 



cHAP.m.1 BY THE TURKS. • 13 



many they grievously maimed, and, as Turkish prisoners have 
declared, over 30,000 persons were by them carried ofF, and 
as has since been told, such as could not march were cruelly 
put to death. Thus have they wasted, destroyed, burnt, 
and plundered all in the land of Austria below Ens, and 
nearly to the water of Ens, but on the hither side of 
the Danube for the most part the land has escaped, for by 
reason of the river the Turk could do there but little harm ;^ the 
towns also round about Vienna beyond Briick on the Leitha, 
have remained unconquered and unwasted by the Turk, but the 
open country wasted and burnt." The irresistible pressure for- 
ward of the main army, the threats of the Sultan, and the merci- 
less fury of the Sackman, produced their consequences in the 
prompt surrender of most of the places which were unprovided 
with garrisons and adequate defences. In this manner fell 
Funfkirchen, Stahlweissenburg, and Pesth, without a blow, into 
the hands of the enemy. In Gran the inhabitants even refused to 
admit the garrison sent by Ferdinand for its occupation, and the 
Archbishop PaulTomori so far forgot his honour and duty as to 
procure the surrender both of town and citadel to the Sultan, to 
whose camp the prelate also betook himself. Comorn was aban- 
doned by its garrison. Raab also fell, but not till it had been 
set on fire by the fugitives. Altenburg in Hungary was betrayed 
into the hands of the enemy. Bruck on the Leitha, on the con- 
trary, defended itself stoutly ; and the Sultan, pleased with the 
constancy and courage of its defenders, willingly accorded them 
terms in'virtue of which they were pledged to do him homage 
only after the fall of Vienna. Content with this compact, he 
ceased his attack on the city, marched past under its walls, and 
strictly forbade all injury to the district in its dependence. 
Wiener Neustadt also defended itself with spirit, and in one day 
repelled five attempts to storm its defences in the most heroic 
manner. Several other places, among them Closterneuburg, and 
Perchtoldsdorf, and some castles held out with success* Such 
occasional opposition was scarcely distasteful to Soliman, for 

* These instances illustrate the fact that Soliman was ill provided with 
siege artillery. The Turks at this period, as will be seen in the case of 
Vienna, relied principally on their skill in mining for the capture of strong 
places, a method very eftective in their hands, but slow.— E. 



U TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. hi. 

whom invariable and cheap success had not its usual attraction. 
His far-reaching ambition looked to a sovereignty of the West 
corresponding to that which his ancestors had asserted over the 
East, and he remarked with complacency the valour of men whom 
he destined for his future subjects. For the same reason he 
detested cowardice in the ranks of his opponents, and punished 
it with the same severity as if it had exhibited itself in his 
own. In contemplation also of the immensity of his force, the 
rapidity of his progress, and the unprepared condition of Austria, 
he held success for certain, and isolated instances of resistance 
could, as he conceived, only afford useful practice to his troops 
without affecting the general and inevitable result. In fact, the 
aspect of the time for Austria was one of gloom and danger. 
The main force of the enemy was hard upon the frontier, which 
had already been crossed at several points by the terrible bands 
of Michael Oglou ; and from the walls of Vienna the horizon 
was seen reddened with the flames of burning villages, while 
within the city little or nothing had yet been done for its forti- 
fication and defence. It is true that, on the near approach of 
the danger, Ferdinand had called meetings of the States, as well 
in Austria as in the other provinces of his hereditary dominions ; 
and had for this object proceeded in person through Styria, 
Carinthia, Tyrol, and Bohemia. The cause was everywhere 
taken up with much alacrity. In Austria the tenth man was 
called out for service ; the other provinces undertook to furnish 
considerable forces ; and Bohemia promised, in case of the actual 
invasion of Austria, to send to her aid every man capable of 
bearing arms. The King, however, saw but too well that with 
all this aid he would be no match in the field for the Sultan s 
force ; and he turned his thoughts to the Empire, in which the 
religious disputes of the time presented serious difficulties in the 
way of the assistance he required. The danger, however, was 
pressing enough to allay for the moment even the heats engen- 
dered by the Reformaiion. At the Diet of Spire, which was 
attended by most of the Electoral and other Princes of the Em- 
pire, Ferdinand addressed to them an urgent appeal, in which 
he made a prominent allusion to the fact that Soliman had 
declared his determination never to lay down his arms till he 
had erected a monument to his victories on the bank of the 



CHAP. III.] BY THE TURKS. 15 



Rhine. The voice of party was indeed silenced by this appeal 
to a common interest ; but the succour, voted after protracted 
discussion, Mas nevertheless scanty, not exceeding 12,000 foot 
and 4000 horse, as the contingent for the Germanic body. 
Then followed interminable debates as to the selection of a 
commander; and the Turks were over the Save and in pos- 
session of Pesth before the Germanic contingent was mustered. 
There were not wanting men hard of belief, pedants of the true 
German stamp, who maintained that mere apprehension had 
exaggerated the danger ; and finally it was agreed at Ratisbon, 
to which city the assembly had transferred itself, to send a de- 
putation of two persons to Hungary to investigate the state of 
affairs on the spot.* They went ; and, having the good fortune 
to escape the hands of the Turks, returned with evidence sufficient 
to satisfy the doubts of their sagacious employers. 

On the day on which Soliman crossed the Hungarian frontier, 
a detachment of Imperial cavalry under Paul Bakics encountered 
a body of the Turkish light troops in the immediate neighbour- 
hood of Vienna, and took a few prisoners. The conquerors 
showed themselves apt disciples in cruelty of the Turks, and 
even exceeded their teachers, who with the sabre usually made 
short work with their captives, whereas the men now taken were 
racked or tortured before they were bound together with ropes 
and flung into the Danube. Meanwhile the near approach of 
the Turks and the delay of all succour raised consternation in 
Vienna to the highest pitch. The news of the fall of Pesth, 
which reached it on the 17th September, suggested flight to all 
who had the means of escape. In defiance of an urgent summons 
on the part of the authorities, addressed to all capable of bearing 
arms, many burghers left the city on pretence of bearing their 
women and children to places of safety, and few of these returned. 
These delinquents were called afterwards to severe account, 
though much excuse was to be found for such conduct on the 
part of individuals in the shameful neglect of their rulers, who 
had postponed measures of defence till resistance appeared hope- 
less. The countless hosts of the invader had crossed the frontier 
before any force had been collected which could even impede its 

* These commissioners were civilians. One of them was a lawyer, 
answering probably to our barrister of six years* standing. — E. 



16 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. iit. 

advance. The royal troops encamped at Altenburg hardly 
amounted to 5000 men, who on the first appearance of the 
enemy effected a rapid retreat in order not to be cut off from 
Vienna. The succours promised by the Empire were not forth- 
coming, though messenger after messenger was sent to hurry 
their advance. Even the Bohemian troops approached but by 
slow marches, under their leader John of Bernstein, and required 
every exhortation to greater diligence. At length Duke Frede- 
rick of the Palatinate, the prince elected as leader of the army of 
the Empire, arrived on the 24th of September at Lintz with the 
scanty levies, amounting to a few thousands, which had as yet 
been collected. At Lintz he held conference with Ferdinand as 
to the measures to be pursued, and then hastened forward to 
effect his entrance into Vienna before the arrival of the Turks. 
On the 26th, however, he received at Greinthe intelligence that 
the Turks had appeared in force in the neighbourhood of the 
city. He was,at first resolutely determined to cut his way at all 
hazards, but when he learned that both the bridges over the 
Danube were in possession of the enemy, being satisfied that by 
the attempt he could only involve his feeble forces in certain 
and useless destruction, he determined to halt at Crems for rein- 
forcements. His cousin, however, the brave Pfalzgraf Philip, 
succeeded in throwing himself into the city, with a small number 
of Spanish and German troops, three days before it was sur- 
rounded by the Turks. 

In Vienna the necessary preparations had now been made with 
almost superhuman exertion, but in such haste and with so little 
material, that they could only be considered .as very inadequate 
to the emergency. The city itself occupied then the same 
ground as at present, the defences were old and in great part 
ruinous, the walls scarcely six feet thick, and the outer palisade 
so frail and insufficient that the name Stadtzaun^ or city hedge, 
which it bears in the municipal records of the time, was literally 
as well as figuratively appropriate. The citadel was merely the 
old building which now exists under the name of Schweizer Hof. 
All the houses which lay too near the wall were levelled to the 
ground ; where the wall was specially weak or out of repair, a new 
entrenched line of earthen defence was constructed and well pali- 
saded ; within the city itself, from the Stuben to the Karnthner 



CHAP. Ill] BY THE TURKS. 17 

or Carinthian gate, an entirely new wall twenty feet high was 
constructed with a ditch interior to the old. The bank of the 
Danube was also entrenched and palisaded, and from the draw- 
bridge to the Salz gate protected with a rampart capable of 
resisting artillery. As a precaution against fire the shingles with 
which the houses were generally roofed were throughout the city 
removed. The pavement of the streets was taken up to deaden 
the effect of the enemy's shot, and watchposts established to guard 
against conflagration. Parties were detached to scour the neigh- 
bouring country in search of provisions, and to bring in cattle 
and forage. Finally, to provide against the possibility of a pro- 
tracted siege, useless consumers, women, children, old men, and 
ecclesiastics were, as far as possible, forced to withdraw from the 
city. Though this latter measure was successful for its special 
purpose, and prevented any failure of subsistence during the 
investment of the city, it had the melancholy consequence that 
many of the fugitives met with massacre or captivity at the 
hands of the Turkish light troops. In the neighbourhood of 
Traismauer, for instance, in the very beginning of September, a 
body of no less than 5000 were unsparingly massacred by the 
Sackman. To meet the financial exigency of the time, an ex- 
traordinary contribution was levied throughout Austria. A 
bishop was taxed 5 florins, a mitred prelate 4, an unmitred 3, 
a count 4, the rest of the noblesse, as also the secular clergy, 
and all citizens who were accounted to possess 100 florins, 
1 florin each ; peasants, servants, and others of the poorer 
classes a kreutzer in the dollar; day labourers 10 pennies, and 
every communicant 9 pennies (see '' Chronicon Mellicense," part 
vii. p. 572). Should these sums appear small, the value of 
money must be considered at a period when a considerable 
country-house might be purchased for 50 florins, and when 200 
florins were reckoned a competence. 

In respect of the active defence, the Pfalzgraf Philip had 
taken the command in the city. Associated with him was the 
veteran hero Nicholas, Count of Salm, who had crossed the 
March field from Upper Hungary with a chosen band of light 
troops, and on whose proved fidelity and valour Ferdinand 
principally relied for the defence of the bulwark of Christen- 
dom. These qualities had been tried through fifty -six years of 

c 



18 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. iii. 

service in the field, and recently in the victory of Pavia (1522), 
in which he had borne a distinguished share, having crossed 
swords and exchanged wounds with the French king, Francis I. 
At the age of seventy, he now undertook a heavier responsi- 
bility than any he had yet incurred ; for though the Pfalzgraf 's 
rank gave him a nominal precedence, the confidence both of the 
soldiery and the citizens rested chiefly on the veteran leader. 

The other commanders were William, Baron of Roggendorf, 
general of the cavalry, who had distinguished himself in the 
Italian wars ; Marcus Beck, of Leopoldsdorf, commissary ge- 
neral ; Ulrich Leyser, master of the ordnance ; John Katzianer ; 
Leonhard, Baron of Vels ; Hector Eck, of Keischach ; and 
Maximilian Leyser. Of Austrian states-deputies and councillors, 
the following were in the city : — George von Puechhaim, go- 
vernor of Lower Austria ; Nicholaus Rabenhaupt, chancellor ; 
Rudolph von Hohenfeld, Felician von Pottschach, privy coun- 
cillors ; John von Greissenegg, commandant of Vienna, and of 
the foot militia of the city ; Melchior von Lamberg ; Trajan 
von Auersberg ; Bernardin Ritschen ; Helfreich von Meggun ; 
Erasmus von Obritschen ; Raimund von Dornberg ; Otto von 
Achterdingen ; John Apfalterer ; Siegfried von Kollonitsch ; 
Reinbrecht von Ebersdorf ; and Hans von Eibenswald. The 
Styrian troops were commanded by the gallant Abel von Hol- 
leneck ; the Bohemian, by Ernst von Brandenstein. The con- 
tingent of the Empire consisted of two regiments, under Kuntz 
Gotzman and James von Bernan. Luis de Avallos, Melchior 
de Villanel, Juan de Salinas, and Juan de Aquilera, commanded 
the Spaniards. The magistrates remaining in the city were 
Wolfgang Troy, burgomaster ; Paul Bernfuss, judge ; and the 
councillors Sebastian Eiseler, Sebastian Schmutz, and Wolfgang 
Mangold. The limits of this work do not admit a list of sub- 
ordinate officers. It would include names connected with the 
first houses of the German and Austrian nobility. Among 
these were several who had joined the garrison as volunteers. 
In the camp of the Imperialists at Crems were two young 
nobles, Rupert, Count of Manderscheid, and Wolf, Count of 
Oettingen, so zealous in the cause, that after the city had been 
invested they swam the Danube, and were drawn up over the 
wall near the Werder gate. The garrison altogether amounted 



CHAP. III.] BY THE TURKS. 19 



to 20,000 infantry and 2000 horse ; the armed burghers 
to about 1000. The distribution of the troops was as 
follows : — The Pfalzgraf Philip occupied, with 100 cuirassiers 
and 14 companies of the troops of the Empire, the Stuben 
quarter from the Rothenthurm to the middle of the curtain 
towards the Karnthner gate. Thence the line of defence was 
taken up to the Augustine Convent by Eck von Reischach, with 
3000 infantry. Thence to the Burggarten were posted the 
Styrian troops under Abel von Holleneck. The citadel was held 
by Leonard von Vels, with 3000 chosen troops. Thence to the 
Scottish gate Maximilian Leyser was in command. In the four 
principal squares of the city were posted cavalry, under William 
von Roggendorf, ready to advance in any direction. From the 
Scottish gate to the Werder gate were posted 2000 Austrians 
and 700 Spaniards, under Rupert von Ebersdorf. The tower 
in the spot called Elend, was strengthened with a rampart, 
and mounted with heavy guns to annoy the Turkish flotilla, 
which covered the Danube as far as Nussdorf. Finally, 
from the Werder gate to the Rothenthurm, including the 
Salz gate, were posted 2000 Bohemians under Ernst von 
Brandenstein and William von Wartenberg, with a detachment 
of cavalry under John, Count of Hardegg. The artillery 
mounted on the defences appears to have consisted of between 
sixty and seventy pieces, of the very various calibres and denomi- 
nations in use at this period. A small armament according to 
our present ideas, if the circuit of the defences and the lightness 
of some of the pieces be considered, but respectable perhaps for 
the time, and more than a match for the light pieces of the 
Turks. The city would probably have been still less provided 
with this arm of defence, but for the Emperor Maximilian, with 
whom the fabrication and use of artillery had been a favourite 
study and pursuit, of which his heirs and country now reaped 
the benefit.* The care of this artillery was committed to seventy- 
four gunners under the master of the ordnance, Ulrich Leyser. 
After all these preparations the defences were very weak, even 
according to the engineering science of the time. There were 
no bastions on which the guns could be properly disposed. It 
is mentioned that several of the pieces which had been adjusted 
* See Ranke, " Deutsche Geschichte," vol. iii. p. 202. 

c 2 



20 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. hi. 

to embrasures or loopholes opened in the wall were found useless 
in that position, and were removed to the roofs of neighbouring 
buildings ; the ditches were dry, and it was left to the defenders 
to supply by gallantry and endurance the deficiencies of art and 
the precautions of prudence. The hour of trial was at hand ; 
on the 20th September, Altenburg surrendered, after a gallant 
defence, and its garrison, 300 strong, were made prisoners. 
These men were interrogated by the Sultan as to the condition 
of Vienna, the strength of its garrison, &c., and having, as would 
appear, answered in terms which agreed with his ideas of the 
truth, were well treated by him, but forced to accompany him 
on his march. Soon afterwards Briick on the Leitha and Traut- 
mannsdorf fell into his hands by capitulation ; and, freed from 
these petty obstacles, he advanced with his collected might, and 
with every prospect of achieving the ruin of the empire in the 
subjection of its capital. 



CHAP. IV.] BY THE TURKS. 21 



CHAPTER IV. 

From September 16 to September 26, 1529. 

In Vienna it was resolved by a council of war, as it was not 
possible to face the overwhelming numbers of the enemy in the 
open field, to neutralize, at least as far as possible, the advantages 
of any positions in the neighbourhood by the sacrifice of the 
suburbs, and of all buildings within range of fire from the walls. 
A more timely adoption of this indispensable measure would 
have obviated much of the violence and misery which attended 
its hurried execution. The necessity was one which from the end 
of August, and after the fall of Pesth, had been obviously in- 
evitable. By the 16th of November the whole neighbourhood 
was swarming with the bands of Michael Oglou, who spared 
neither age nor sex ; children, old people, and pregnant women 
were nmrdered with every circumstance of cruelty, and those 
who were spared from the sabre were swept into slavery. A 
contemporary writer, Peter Stern von Labach, describes these 
horrors in the following terms : " After the taking of Briick on 
the Leitha and the castle of Trautmannsdorf, the Sackman and 
those who went before him, people who have no regular pay, 
but live by plunder and spoil, to the number of 40,000, spread 
themselves far and wide over the country, as far as the Ens and 
into Styria, burning and slaying. Many thousands of people were 
murdered, or maltreated and dragged into slavery. Children were 
cut out of their mothers' wombs and stuck on pikes ; young women 
abused to death, and their corpses left on the highway. God rest 
their souls, and grant vengeance on the bloodhounds who commit- 
ted this evil." The peasantry fled either to the depths of the 
forests, or to the city, and increased by their narratives the con- 
sternation there prevailing. By the 20th September every road 
which led from east and south towards the city was crowded with 
fugitives endeavouring to save themselves and their moveables. As 



22 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. iv. 



however the Eastern horsemen were familiar with all difficulties 
of ground, and overcame all impediments of morass, or forest, 
or mountain, few of the fugitives escaped. A few fortified towns 
and castles only held out. A chronicle of the time asserts that 
scarcely a third part of the inhabitants of Upper Austria sur- 
vived the invasion. It w^as only on the 22nd September, when 
the enemy was at the gates of Vienna, that the resolution we 
have mentioned was finally adopted, to sacrifice to the general 
security the entire suburbs and the many sumptuous buildings 
which they included. The most valuable of the moveable pro- 
perty was first conveyed into the city, and the work of destruc- 
tion commenced. It was soon, however, found that it had 
commenced too late for its orderly and deliberate execution. 
It was left to the proprietors to save hastily what they could ; 
the rest was given up for the soldiery to glean, and the torch 
was applied to all the buildings. Disorders and. excesses such as 
might be expected were the result, and the inhabitants were 
little better treated by the foreign soldiery than they would have 
been by the Turk. That many wine-casks should have been 
broken in the cellars, the owners of which at this period culti- 
vated the vine to a great extent, and much store of provisions 
and other valuables burnt, and that even the churches should 
have been desecrated and plundered, can scarcely be matter of 
censure, except so far as it may be conjectured that with better 
discipline on the part of the soldiery, the articles destroyed 
might in part have been removed ; but the wretched people who 
were conveying the sole remnants of their property to the city 
were remorselessly plundered, misused, and even murdered on 
any attempt at resistance. The example of this unrestrained 
licence spread its effects even to within the walls. Several 
houses in the city were broken open and plundered, and even 
the citadel itself was entered by a band of marauders. A pro- 
clamation was speedily issued against these disorders, and put in 
force by the erection and employment of a gallows at the so- 
called Lugeck. Eight hundred houses had within four days 
been burnt. Among the most important of these were — 
the great City Hospital, dedicated to the Holy Ghost, which 
stood between the city and the Wien river, the situation of 
which, till about twenty years ago, was marked by an ancient 



CHAP. IV.] BY THE TURKS. 23 

pillar, bearing an inscription, with the date 1332 (from this 
building, which also had a fine churchy the sick and helpless 
inmates were transferred first to the convent at the Himmers 
Pforte, and next to the desecrated church of the nunnery of 
St. Clara)— the Franciscan Convent at St. Theobald's, the 
present corn-market — the churches of St. Anthony and St. 
Coloman, between the city and the Wien river — the great 
nunnery of St. Nicholas, before the Stuben gate, and that of St. 
Magdalen, near the Scottish gate — the Closterneuburgerhof, 
also near the Scottish gate. Finally, in order to deprive the 
Turks of the advantage of a stronghold, on an eminence near 
the city, it was unfortunately necessary to destroy the castle on 
the Kahlenberg (Leopoldsberg), formerly the residence of the 
Margrave Leopold, who died in the odour of sanctity. The 
last measure adopted was that of walling up and fortifying all 
the gates, except the Salz gate, which was left open as a sally- 
port. 

On the 23rd September, while the suburbs were in full con- 
flagration, a strong body of Turks pressed forward as far as St. 
Mark's, cut to pieces a number of invalids who had scandalously 
been left there to their fate, and ventured still further on the 
high road. This occasioned the first sally from the city of five 
hundred cuirassiers under Count Hardegg. These having pressed 
too far forw^ard, the Turks took advantage of the ruins of some 
of the burnt houses to attack them in flank while the front was 
also engaged with superior numbers. The cuirassiers fell back 
in disorder without waiting for a support which was detached to 
their assistance. They must have had good horses and sharp 
spurs, for only three were killed, but six, with a cornet. Cornet 
Christopher von Zedlitz, were taken. The Turks immediately 
placed the heads of the three killed on the points of lances, and 
to make the number of the dead equal to that of the prisoners, 
they beheaded four of the invalids of St. Mark's, and compelled the 
prisoners to bear the seven heads to the presence of the Sultan, 
then on his march from Bruck on the Leitha, in order to gladden 
him as soon as possible with the sight of these grisly trophies 
of his first success over the defenders of Vienna. He in- 
terrogated the prisoners as to the strength of the garrison and 
the present position of Ferdinand, on both which points they 



24 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. iv. 

gave him true replies. Upon this Soliman released four of the 
prisoners, presented each with three ducats, and sent them back 
to Vienna with the following message :—'' If the city would 
surrender on terms, the conditions should be arranged with its 
commanders without the walls, none of his people should be 
allowed to enter the city, and the property and persons of the 
inhabitants should be secured. It was Soliman's sole desire to 
follow the King till he should find him, and then to retire to his 
own dominions. Should the city, however, venture to resist, he 
would not retreat till he had reduced it, and then he would spare 
neither old nor young, not the child in the mother's womb, and 
would so utterly destroy the city that men should not know 
where it stood. He would not rest his head till Vienna and the 
whole of Christendom were under his subjection, and it was his 
settled purpose within three days, namely on the feast of St. 
Michael, to break his fast in Vienna." The other three prisoners 
with the cornet he retained about his person. To the latter he 
showed great favour, caused him to be sumptuously attired in 
silk and gold, and kept him constantly in his suite. At the close 
of this narrative will be found the curious and lively account of 
the prisoner, preserved in the collection of the Baron von Enen- 
kel in the archives of Vienna. 

At length, September 29th, the Grand Vizier with the main 
army appeared before the city. On the 25th, nevertheless, two 
companies of imperial troops, raised from Nuremberg, effected 
their entrance through the Salz gate with drums beating and 
colours fly ins;-. They related that between Tuln and Traismauer 
they had fallen in with a body of 5000 fugitives on foot and 
3000 in boats, mostly women, children, and regular clergy, 
who on the following day had been overtaken and destroyed by 
the bands of Michael Oglou. On the 26th September, Soliman 
sent into the city a Bohemian, one of the garrison which had 
surrendered in Altenburg, with the contemptuous offer that he 
would send the other Bohemians there taken to strengthen the 
garrison of Vienna. The man was sent back accompanied by 
two Turkish prisoners, each of whom was presented with two 
ducats, with the reply that they had more garrison than enough 
in Vienna, and that Soliman might keep his Bohemian prisoners. 
Soon after the arrival of the main army a discharge of arrows, 



CHAP. IV.] BY THE TURKS. 25 

which literally darkened the air, was followed by a first summons 
to surrender, succeeded by a second and a third. These remain- 
ing unanswered, Soliman sent in four prisoners richly dressed, 
and liberally supplied with presents, with a repetition both of 
his offer of a favourable capitulation, and of his threats in case 
of resistance. Officers should be put to death with torture, the 
site of the city sown with salt and ashes, &c. The stern com- 
manders, however, merely despatched in return a like number of 
Turkish prisoners, as richly provided with presents and apparel, 
but without an answer either to his threats or promises. 



26 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. v. 



CHAPTER V. 

From September 26 to October 2, 1529. 

The Turkish army had scarcely arrived in the neighbourhood of 
the city, when a forest of tents rose from the ground, presenting 
so striking a spectacle, that even Austrian contemporary writers 
are excited to exchange their usual phlegmatic style in describing 
it for something of the Oriental. 

The country within sight of the walls as far as Schwechat and 
Trautmannsdorf was covered with tents, the number of which was 
calculated at 30,000, nor could the sharpest vision from St. 
Stephen's tower overlook the limit of the circle so occupied. 
The flower of the Turkish force, the Janissaries, took possession 
of the ruins of the suburbs, which afforded them an excellent 
cover from the fire of the besieged. They also cut loopholes in 
the walls yet standing, from which they directed a fire of small 
ordnance and musketry on the walls of the city. The tent of 
Soliman rose in superior splendour over all others at Simmering, 
on the spot and to the extent now occupied by the building 
called the Neugebaude. Hangings of the richest tissue separated 
its numerous compartments from each other. Costly carpets, and 
cushions and divans studded with jewels, formed the furniture. 
Its numerous pinnacles were terminated by knobs of massive 
gold. The colour of the chief compartment was green striped 
with gold. Five hundred archers of the Royal guard kept 
watch there night and day. Around it rose in great though 
inferior splendour, the tents of ministers and favourites ; and 
12,000 Janissaries, the terror of their enemies, and not un- 
frequently of their masters, were encamped in a circle round this 
central sanctuary. The Pacha of Roumelia was posted opposite 
the Stuben gate, and thence down to the Danube, securing the 
baggage and its attendant train of horses, mtiles, and camels : 
the latter, some 20,000 in number, were at pasture in the. mea- 



CHAP, v.] BY THE TURKS. 27 

dows. The camp of the Vizier Ibrahim extended from Simmer- 
ing over the Wienerberg as far as Spinnerin, and thence down 
the declivities as far as Wieden and the high road opposite the 
Stuben and Karnthner gates. The Pacha of Bosnia occupied the 
line of the Wien river, from St. Ulrich and St. Theobald to 
Penzing. The Pacha of Roumelia communicated with his right 
by a body of the renegades who had joined the Turkish forces. 
From St. Veit to near Dobling the second line was formed by 
the Pachas of Scutari and Semendria ; the camp of the Pacha 
Nastertsky with many Christian prisoners was formed at Spor- 
kenbiihel. The corps of the Pacha of Belgrade, which extended 
itself from Schonbrunn to beyond Laxenburg, secured the rear of 
the besieging force. The guard of the Royal tent was intrusted 
to the Pacha of Anatolia. The meadows and islands of the 
Lobau as far as Nussdorf were occupied by the crews of the 
Turkish flotilla, which had arrived on the 25th of September, 
with charge to watch the banks and prevent the passage of suc- 
cours. These mariners, a well -trained and efficient body, were 
called Nasser or Nassadists, and Martolos, a Turkish corruption 
of the German Matros. The number of their vessels amounted 
to 400. Amid the ruins of the suburbs the Janissaries and the 
asapes (a species of sappers) dug trenches, from which they plied 
their arrows and musketry with such assiduity, that no one 
without extreme danger could show himself on the walls. Their 
archers' aim was so accurate that they often sent their missiles 
through the embrasures and loopholes of the defences. It 
happened, however, fortunately for the weak garrison, that 
the greater part of the Turkish heavy artillery had been 
left behind in Hungary, its further transport having been 
rendered impossible by heavy rains. For this reason the 
besiegers were reduced to limit their operations to mining, 
and to a discharge of arrows so heavy and incessant, that through 
the town generally, and especially in the Karnthner street, no one 
could walk abroad in safety. The line of actual attack extended 
from the rampart near the Augustine Convent to the tower 
situated between the Stuben and Rothenthurm gate's, where Eck 
von Eeischach commanded. In face of this line of defence they 
excavated a labyrinth of deep entrenchments, strengthened with 
earth and timber, the Karnthner tower being their principal point 



28 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. v. 

of assault. Their artillery fire, probably from its inefficiency for 
breaching purposes, was principally directed against the higher 
buildings of the city, especially St. Stephen's tower ; but the 
arrows flew in all directions. Some of the latter, probably dis- 
charged by persons of distinction, were of costly fabric, painted, 
and even set with pearls, and were kept long afterwards as 
curiosities. The total force of the besiegers is stated by Peter 
von Labach and Meldemann at nearly 300,000, of whom, how- 
ever, only 100,000 were fully armed. The remainder was em- 
ployed with the baggage, ill equipped, untrained to arms, and 
rather a burthen than an assistance to the more regular force. 
The artillery amounted to about 300 pieces, of which not more 
than thirty were of respectable calibre. The investment of the city 
was completed, and the passage of the Danube effectually closed by 
the Nassadists on the 27th September ; and soon afterwards three 
companies of German and Spanish horse made a sally from the 
Burg gate. A skirmish ensued, in which some two hundred Turks 
and several of their officers were killed. The Spaniards at the 
Werder gate also opposed with success the landing of a cargo of 
arms, which had arrived by the Danube from Kahlenberg. From 
this time forth, to prevent unauthorized alarms, all the bells in 
the city were silenced, and even the striking of the hour 
was forbidden, the only exception being in favour of the 
prime bell of St. Stephen's, which was allowed to strike the 
quarters. On the 29th — that St. Michael's day on which Soli- 
man had declared his purpose of breakfasting in Vienna — the 
Vizier Ibrahim rode the circuit of the walls with a numerous 
suite. He had wisely laid aside the usual costume of his high 
office, and exchanged its turban of white and gold and flowing 
robe for a coloured shawl and a simpler soldier's attire. He 
adopted also the further precaution of keeping pretty well out of 
gunshot. This ride was perhaps meant as a substitute for that 
celebration of the saint's day which the Sultan had announced, 
but failed to observe. The Viennese, who were possessed in the 
sixteenth century by the jocular propensity which they still retain, 
did not fail to indulge it at the Sultan's expense. Prisoners were 
released with a message to him that his breakfast had waited for 
him till the meat was cold, and he must be fain to content him- 
self with such poor entertainment as they could send him from 



CHAP, v.] BY THE TURKS. 29 

the guns on the wall. To this, however, about midday, they 
added a vigorous sally, conducted by the brave Eck von 
Reischach, from the Karnthner gate ; through which also the 
Spaniard Luis d'Avallos led a company of his people, and killed 
many of the Turks, who had been attracted by the grapes of the 
neighbouring vineyards. The Spaniards only retired at last 
before superior numbers, with the loss of their cornet, |^ntonio 
Comargo. On the same day, for the first time, a spy ventured 
out of the city, who twice swam the Danube and returned in 
safety, but on a third venture was no more heard of. Measures 
were now adopted for taking an exact account of all provisions 
in the city, the duration of the siege being uncertain. The 
troops were then divided into messes of four men ; and to each 
mess a ration was allotted of eight pounds of bread and fifteen 
measures of wine. It was found necessary to diminish this quantity 
to some of the foreign lanzknechts, who, unaccustomed to the 
strong Austrian wines, found it sufficient to incapacitate them 
for duty. Five-eighths of their wine and two pounds of their bread 
were struck off. From St. Michael's day, continued rains, and 
frosts, unusual for the season, at night, caused much suffering 
to the Turks in their light tents, unused as they were to the 
climate. The cold continued after the rain abated, and was 
aggravated by severe storms. The 30th September passed with 
no other incident than an assault by the Turks on the guard at 
the drawbridge, which was driven into the city with some loss. 
On this day a Christian boy and a girl escaped from the Turkish 
camp into the city. The girl had been appropriated by a rich 
pacha, who had lavished upon her adornment ornaments and 
apparel. Upon a nocturnal alarm in the camp, which caused a 
general movement towards the walls, they had left their tent and 
succeeded, under cover of the darkness, in reaching the city. 
Much information was obtained from both. On the 1st October, 
Friday, the principal day of the week with the Turks, the Yizier 
with all the Agas paid their respects to the Sultan, who, in conse- 
quence of the inclement weather, had taken up his quarters in 
Ebersdorf. 

Three hundred lanzknechts made a sally on this day from the 
Scottish gate, and a conflict ensued without material advantage 
to either side. Towards noon a man made his appearance near 



so TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. v. 

the drawbridge attired as a Turk, who prayed earnestly for ad- 
mission, saying that he had been brought up in Turkey, but had 
come of Christian parents, and was determined to revert to their 
faith. This man was questioned both by ordinary interrogation 
and by torture, and gave much valuable information as to the 
strength of the enemy. Of their artillery, he said that he had 
seen te||i of tiie largest guns, called wall- breakers, each three 
fathoms long, in a boat on the Danube ; that the number of the 
Nassad boats was 400, manned with 5000 soldiers. He gave 
also the first accurate information of the mines to the rigrht and 
left of the Karnthner gate, a point of intense interest to the 
defenders of that post, respecting which nothing had previously 
been ascertained. The besieged, having now ascertained that one 
principal mine was directed against the Karnther tower, and the 
other against the convent of St. Clara, betook themselves with 
the utmost zeal to the excavation of counter-mines at these two 
points, propping, at the same time, the walls with posts and 
beams, so that upon any springing of the enemy's mines, the 
ruins might fall outwards and impede the access to the breach. 
The General Roggendorf ensured to the informant a subsistence 
for life in return for his intelligence ; we may suppose, also, 
with some consideration of the manner in which it had been 
extracted. On the same evening a heavy fire was kept up on 
both sides, which led to the expectation of an assault, but none 
ensued. On the 2nd of October, the enemy's mine under the 
Karnthner tower was detected and destroyed. A large body of 
Turks, however, about the same time, pressed forward nearly 
to the Scottish gate, and retired, after a lively skirmish, with ten 
prisoners and thirty heads of the slain. * To meet the danger of 
the enemy's mines, guards were placed in all the cellars near 
the walls, trenches dug near the fort of the rampart, and drums 
with peas strewed on their parchment, or tubs filled with water, 
placed at the suspected spots, to indicate by their vibration the 
neighbourhood of the Turkish labourers, and guide thereby the 
operations of the counter-miners. By these precautions, many 
of the enemy's galleries were discovered, and either ruined by 
counter-mines, or penetrated and robbed of their powder. It is 
here expedient to contradict the tale, current to our own time, 
that the continual efforts of the Turks had pushed a mine as far 



CHAP, v.l BY THE TURKS. 31 

35 the house on the so-called Freiung, which bears still the 
name of Heidenschuss, where it is said that a baker's apprentice 
discovered it and occasioned its destruction.* 

This incident is in itself highly improbable, I may almost 
assert impossible. Not to take into account that it is mentioned 
in none of the narratives of the time, of which I have fourteen 
before me, the distance alone would make it next to impossible 
that so long an operation could have been carried on without 
detection. It appears also, from the archives of the Scottish 
foundation in Vienna, that the house in question bore the name 
Heidenschuss long before the Turkish siege, namely, from the 
year 1292, when the Tartars overran Austria. Others aver that 
it belonged to a family of the name of Hayden, which bore in 
its arms a Tartar discharging an arrow. This is, indeed, dis- 
puted ; but the antiquity of the name Heidenschuss is certain, 
and it is equally so that no Turkish mine ever was carried so far 
as to the spot in question. It is just to mention that the frater- 
nity of bakers, as well as many other corporations, rendered 
great services in this season of common danger, and it is likely 
enough that one of that body may have performed the particular 
service in question in some other locality. The services of the 
bakers' guild were acknowledged, after the raising of the siege, 
by the present of a silver cup, and the privilege of carrying the 
same in procession round the city every Easter Tuesday. This 
practice v»as observed till the year 1811, when the disorders in- 
cident to the concourse of people it collected, and the loss of 
some days' labour which it was apt to occasion, led to its sup- 
pression by the authorities of the bakers' corporation. 

* The distance of this spot from the wall would be about one-third of the 
extreme breadth of the city. — T. . 



32 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. vr. 



CHAPTER VI. 

From October 3 to October 13, 1529. 

On the 3rd October, the enemy's fire was much increased, and 
protracted even far into the night. An assault was therefore 
confidently expected. The garrison remained under arms night 
and day. Nothing, however, ensued except considerable damage 
to the Karnthner tower and the adjacent bastion, in return for 
which the kitchen of the Beglerbeg of Roumelia was almost 
entirely disorganized by a heavy shot from the city. On the 
following day orders were issued in the Turkish camp for the 
most active prosecution of the mines. Michael Oglou's people 
were ordered to convey ladders and bundles of straw to the 
trenches, and every preparation was made for a general assault. 
On this day Simon Athinai, surnamed the Learned, a friend and 
dependant of Zapolya, made his appearance in the camp, to pay 
his respects to Soliman, who received him with the honours 
which he was accustomed to show to men of letters. In the 
evening a council of war was held in the city, and a strong sally 
was resolved upon for the following day, principally with the 
object of discovering and destroying the mines last commenced ; 
and also of driving the Janissaries out of the ruins of the suburbs, 
from which their incessant fire greatly annoyed the garrison. 
Eight thousand men of all arms and nations were appointed to 
this service, and the operation was commenced at six in the 
morning. Its success was by no means such as was expected; 
though at first it promised the happiest results. The batteries 
of the enemy were in the first instance carried and left behind ; 
the soldiers, well led- by their officers, flung themselves on the 
enemy with the deadly weapons used in hand-to-hand conflict at 
this period, such as the morning-star and the battle-axe, and 
with murderous effect, but as day broke the alarm ran through 
the Turkish camp and brought heavy numbers to the rescue. 



CHAP. VI.] BY THE TURKS. 33 

A sudden apprehension of being cut off from the city, suggested 
by a few voices, degenerated into a panic, and the troops fell 
into confusion, which ended in a general flight. The voices of 
their officers, the encouragement from the garrison on the 
walls, and the example of a brave commander, Wolf Hagen, 
were unavailing to check the torrent. Hagen himself, with 
a few brave men who remained about him, was surrounded 
and beheaded. His body was rescued and brought into the 
city for honourable burial. There fell also in this disas- 
trous action a German officer of noble blood, George Stein - 
peiss, and a Spaniard, Garcia Gusman : the brave Hector von 
Reischach was severely wounded. Five hundred heads and 
several prisoners remained in the camp of the Turks, who, how- 
ever, on their part, suffered considerable loss. The retreat was 
conducted with such confusion, that many were forced over the 
parapet of the bridge, and, maimed by the fall, remained at 
the mercy of the Turks, who pursued so closely up to the walls, 
that they were only driven back from them at push of pike. At 
noon there was a fresli alarm that camels were conveying 
fascines of wood, straw, and vine-sticks to fill up the ditch. The 
expected assault, however, did not take place. The fire of the 
Turks recommenced at 5 p.^i. and was maintained without 
cessation, which caused the soldiers to remain at their posts 
through the night. On the 7th, at 9 a.m., the Turks assaulted 
two bastions, and sprung a mine at the Karnthner gate, by which 
the wall opposite the nunnery of St. Clara was destroyed for a 
space of thirteen fathoms. The following night the camp was 
illuminated with several thousand torches, and a general shouting 
and alarm took place without further result. It was probably 
the celebration of some festival. The garrison having been 
assembled at their posts. Count Salm announced to them that by 
a trusty messenger, who had swum the Danube at midnight, he 
had received consolatory tidings from King Ferdinand and the 
Duke Frederick, who promised to come to their relief within a 
week. The garrison hailed this intelligence with noisy acclama- 
tion, which probably excited as much notice and surprise in the 
Turkish camp as their illuminations and shoutings had excited 
in Vienna. Though this cheering assurance raised the hopes of 
all, yet the difficulties of the defence became every r]ay more 

D 



31 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. ti. 

urgeut, and a proclamation v/as issued, forbidding, on pain of 
death, all self-indulgence and neglect of duty. To illustrate and 
enforce this edict, two lanzknechts, who, over their cups, re- 
mained absent from their posts after the alarm had been given, 
were hanged at the Lugeek as traitors. On the 8th the whole 
artillery of the Turks played upon the city. The timber 
bulwark in front of the Karnthner gate was set on fire, and the 
walls, deprived of their breastwork, threatened to fall inwards. 
To avoid this, possibly fatal, catastrophe, trunks of trees and huge 
beams were brought to their support, and a new breastwork was 
thrown up with incredible celerity. A similar work was thrown 
up before the Scottish gat-e, and mounted with two guns, which 
did much mischief in the Turkish camp towards Sporkenbiihel. 
On the 9th October an alarm took place at daybreak, and prepa- 
rations for a storm were evident in the Turkish camp. At 
3 P.M. mines were sprung to the right and left of the Karn- 
thner gate. The one on the left opened a breach in the wall, 
wide enough for twenty-four men to advance in order. The 
assault was nevertheless gallantly repulsed by Salm and Katzi- 
aner in three successive instances. Several Spaniards and 
Germans had been buried or blown into the air by the explosion ; 
others were hurled back into the city without serious injury. 
The explosions would have been more effective if the besieged 
had not succeeded in reaching some of the chambers of the 
mines by countermining, and in carrying off eight tuns of the 
charge. During the repeated assaults the heaviest artillery of 
the city was discharged incessantly upon the Turkish cavalry, 
and with such good aim, that, to use the words of Peter Stern 
von Labach, man and horse flew ink) the air. Upon every 
retreat of the storming-parties, trumpets from St. Stephen's 
tower, and warlike music on the place of St. Clara, celebrated 
the triumph of the besieged. The Sultan, dispirited at these 
repeated failures, adopted a precaution which indicated appre- 
hension on his own part of a sally from the city, for he directed 
trenches to be dug round the tents of the Janissaries and other 
picked troops. In the city, when quiet was restored, the old 
wall was rapidly repaired, a new one constructed, the houses 
which interfered with it levelled, and their materials employed to 
fill up the wooden breastwork 



CHAP. VI.] BY THE TURKS. 35 



* On the 10th all was quiet, and the work of repair proceeded. 
Two mines were discovered and destroyed, and in a small sally 
of some eighty men five camels were captured. 

On the nth, towards 9 a.m., a mine was sprung between the 
Karnthner and Stuben gates, which made an enormous breach, 
equivalent to an open gateway in the wall. Heavy bodies of 
men rushed on to the assault: a second mine was sprung at the 
Stuben gate, and, according to some accounts, the city was posi- 
tively entered at this quarter by some of the enemy. This, 
however, is doubtful ; but it is certain that a Turkish standard- 
bearer had mounted the wall, when he was struck down by a 
musquet shot into the ditch. The assault and defence were 
continued w^ith equal determination for three hours. Twelve 
hundred bodies were heaped up in the breach, and though new 
assailants seemed to spring from the earth, their efforts failed 
before the unshaken courage of the defenders. The conflict 
ceased at midday. The loss of the garrison was far less than 
that of the Turks ; yet, at a general muster of the armed citizens 
which took place in the evening, 625 were missing from the 
numbers mustered at the beginning of the siege. The wrath of 
the Sultan was kindled to the highest pitch. He stormed, en- 
treated, promised, and threatened ; and on the following day the 
assault was renewed. Again two mines exploded in the same 
quarter as before, and again the ruin of the wall w^as extensive. 
The Turks were in the breach sooner almost than their approach 
could be detected, as they thought, but the wall was scarcely 
down before its ruins were occupied by a company of Spaniards, 
with their colours flying and courage undepressed. The storm 
was fierce, but short ; the repulse was again complete, and 
depression and exhaustion prevailed in the Turkish ranks. From 
the towers of the city their officers were seen urging them for- 
ward with blows. In several places explosions were observed 
which did no injury to the walls. Although the attacks were 
sevAl times repeated, and to a late hour in the evening, as the 
courage of the defenders rose that of the enemy quailed, and the 
latter efforts were more and more easily repelled. The loss of 
the assailants could not be ascertained, as the Turks, according 
to their custom, carried off their dead. Late in the night, how- 
ever^ a council of war was held in their camp, in which the 

d2 



36 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. vi. 

former tone of confidence was remarkably lowered. The lateness 
of the season and the difficulty of subsistence were the topics of 
discussion. The latter difficulty was not indeed a fictitious one, 
for, under the expectation of a speedy surrender of the city, 
supplies had been collected on a scale quite inadequate to the 
present exigency. It was also remembered that three main 
assaults had been executed, and that three times on each occasion 
the troops had advanced to the charge. This magic number 
had fulfilled the law of Islam, by which, whether in the field or 
against defences, no more than three attacks are required of the 
faithful. Notwithstanding these good reasons and fair excuses 
for immediate withdrawal, the temptation of plunder was so 
strong, that it was agreed to attempt on the following day, the 
14th, one more assault with all their force ; but, should this fail, 
to raise the siege. The Janissaries, who were loudest in their 
complaints, were pacified by a payment of the ordinary assault 
money, namely, a thousand aspers, or twenty ducats, to each man. 
The 1 3th October passed therefore without attack, but the pre- 
parations for one were in active progress. Numerous criers 
perambulated the camp, proclaiming the great assault for the 
following day, and announcing the following rewards : — To the 
first man who should mount the wall, promotion from his re- 
spective military rank to the next above it, and a sum of 30,000 
aspers (600 ducats).* The Sultan inspected in person and on 
horseback the preparations, and expressed his satisfaction. Nor 
were they idle in the city. While the soldiers stood to their 
arms, the citizens of both sexes, and of all classes, ages, and pro- 
fessions, spiritual as well as lay, were at work without cessation, 
removing rubbish, digging new intrenchments, throwing up 
works, strengthening the ramparts, and filling up the breaches. 
Many so engaged were wounded by the enemy's various missiles. 
Their attention was also carefully directed to the enemy's mines, 

* The vast pecuniary resources of the Turkish empire at this perio^ and 
the profusion with which they were dispensed abroad, offers a striking con- 
trast to the poverty and niggardliness of the House of Austria and the 
Germanic body. , While Soliman was marching upon Pesth the operations 
of the Austrian flotilla on the Danube were paralyzed for want of 40,000 
florins to pay the arrears of the crews. With great difliculty 800 florins 
were raised for the purpose. — See Ranke, " Fursten uud Volker," vol, iii. 
p. 191. -E. 



CHAP. VI.] BY THE TURKS. 37 

and they succeeded on this day in detecting and carrying off six 
tuns of powder from one intended for the destruction of the 
Karnthner tower. Thus prepared and thus determined, they 
waited for the dawn of the day Avhich was to decide the fate 
of the Christian stronghold, so long and so gallantly main- 
tained. 



38 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. vii. 



CHAPTER VII. 

October 14 to November 20, 1529. 

At daybreak of the 14th October the flower of the Turkish army 
was arrayed in three powerful bodies for the assault, and towards 
nine o'clock they advanced, led on by officers of the highest rank. 
On this occasion, however, the desperate courage and cheerful 
contempt of death which had usually been conspicuous among 
the Turkish soldiery were no longer distinguishable. It was to 
no purpose that their officers, the Vizier in person at their head, 
urged them forward with stick and whip and sabre-edge, they 
refused obedience, saying they preferred to die by the hands of 
their own officers rather than to face the long muskets of the 
Spaniards and the German spits, as they called the long swords 
of the lanzknechts. Towards noon two mines were sprung to 
the right and left of the Karnthner gate, but a third, which had 
been carried under the Burg, was fortunately detected, and its 
entire charge of twenty barrels of powder fell into the hands of 
the counterminers. A breach, nevertheless, twenty- four fathoms 
wide, was the result of the mines which succeeded, and through 
this, supported by the fire of all their batteries, repeated attempts 
were made to storm, but in every instance repulsed as before. 
These attacks were the last expiring efforts of exhausted men. 
Two incidents connected with them have been considered worthy 
of record. The first is the adventure of two officers, a Portu- 
guese and a German, who had quarrelled over niglit, and were 
proceeding to settle their difference with the sword in the morn- 
ing, having selected the breach or its immediate neighbourhood 
for their place of meeting. Being interrupted by the Turkish 
assault, they naturally enough, instead of proceeding with their 
own foolish and useless purpose, agreed to turn their arms against 
the Turks. The point of the story seems to be, that after one 
had lost his left arm and the other the use of his right, they 



CHAP. VII.] BY THE TURKS. 39 

stood by one another, making a perfect soldier between them, 
till both were killed. The other incident is one of more his- 
torical importance. It is that of the severe and ultimately fatal 
wound of the brave Count Salm, who, after escaping all the 
previous dangers of the siege, was hit on the hip towards 2 p.m. 
by the splintered fragments of a stone, and carried from the 
breach, vvhich till then he had never quitted. He survived till 
the spring of the following year, w^hen he died of the effects of 
this injury at his residence of Salm Hoff, near Marchegg in 
Lower Austria. King Ferdinand caused a sumptuous monu- 
ment to be erected to this deserving soldier in the church, then 
existing, of St. Dorothea, in which was the family vault of the 
Salms. This church was pulled down in 1783, when the Salm 
family took possession of the monument, and removed it to their 
residence at Raitz in Moravia. 

On the failure of these last attacks, Soliman abandoned all 
hope of gaining possession of the city, and the troops received 
accordingly a general order of retreat. Its execution was at- 
tended by an act of atrocity which throws a shadow over the 
character of the sovereign by whose servai^ts it was perpetrated, — 
a shadow not the less deep because contrasted with many recorded 
indications of a noble and generous nature. It may, indeed, 
possibly be considered as another specimen of unavoidable con- 
descension to the passions of an ill-disciplined soldiery, such as 
the massacre of the garrison of Pesth, and rather as an exhi- 
bition of the weakness than the misuse of despotic rule. The 
Janissaries broke up from their encampment an hour before 
midnight, and set on fire their huts, forage, and every com- 
bustible article which tlrey could not or would not carry with 
them. Under this latter head they included the greater portion 
of the vast swarm of prisoners of all ages and both sexes collected 
in their quarters. Of these the younger portion alone, boys and 
girls, were dragged along with their retiring columns, tied to- 
gether by ropes, and destined to slavery. The old of both sexes 
and the children were for the most part flung alive into the 
flames of the burning camp, and the remainder^ut to pieces or 
impaled. The glare of the conflagration and the shrieks of the 
sufferers disturbed through the night the rest so dearly earned 
by the brave defenders of the city, and though their approach- 



40 . TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. vii. 

iiig deliverance might be read in the one, it was probably easy to 
conjecture from the other the horrors by which that deliverance 
vras accompanied. When this act of cowardly vengeance was 
accomplished, a parting salvo from all their fire-arms was dis- 
charged at the walls ; and after all remaining buildings in the 
suburbs and adjacent villages had been set on fire, the army com- 
menced its retreat. 

With the first light of morning came assurance of the city's 
safety, which was hailed by a general discharge of artillery from 
the walls, and by warlike music in the public squares, and from 
St. Stephen's tower. The bells, too, w^ere released from the 
silence to which they had been condemned since the 29th of Sep- 
tember, and a solemn Te Deum and high mass were celebrated 
in St. Stephen's in honour of the Holy Trinity. The Sultan 
questioned his prisoner the Cornet Zedlitz as to the cause of the 
sounds which reached his ear. The cornet avowed at once his 
belief that the clamour was that of joy and triumph over the 
deliverance of the city. The Sultan evinced his satisfaction at 
the frankness of his favourite's reply by dismissing him in safety 
to the city, bearing on his person the marks of Oriental favour 
in the shape of silken and gold-embroidered apparel, and accom- 
panied by two of his fellow-prisoners, who thus shared the ad- 
vantage of the good-will w^hich the soldier had earned by his 
manly bearing. Soon after this creditable act, the Sultan com- 
menced his march in the direction of Briick on the Leitha. 
Early the following day the flotilla began to drop down the 
river, not, however, unmolested by the artillery from the city, 
which sunk several of the vessels. The Grand Vizier remained 
for some time with some 60,000 cavalry in the neighbourhood 
of the Wienerberg, partly to cover the retreat, partly to rally 
the light troops dispersed on plundering expeditions. It is 
stated by some writers, further to account for this delay, that 
he waited for the issue of the machinations of certain of his 
agents in the city, who had undertaken to set it on fire, and that 
he hoped even at this late liour by such means to effect his 
entrance. This supposition is not very consistent with the 
haughty and elevated character of the man. It is however 
certain that three suspected individuals were arrested, who gave 
themselves out for escaped prisoners. They had been at first 



CHAP. VII.] BY THE TURKS. 41 

admitted as such without suspicion ; but when it was observed 
that their purses were well filled with Turkish money, this was 
thought a sufficient reason for putting them to the torture, by 
which a confession was extorted that they had been hired for the 
purpose above described. They were quartered, and their limbs 
affixed in terrorem on the walls. At the distance of a mile the 
Sultan again halted, and held a divan to receive the felicitations 
of his great officers on the fortunate termination of the campaign. 
After these functionaries had kissed his hand, he distributed 
among them rich rewards. The Vizier received a jewelled sabre, 
four costly pelisses, and five purses.* The Pachas received each 
two pelisses and a sum of money. The money distributed as 
reward to the storming-parties had amounted to 240,000 ducats, 
so that the closing act of the siege cost the Sultan at least 250,000 
ducats. The most curious feature of the transaction is the tone 
of the bulletins in which the retreat was described. The great 
Orientalist and historian Yon Hammer has given us translations 
of several. The concluding passage of one of them is to this 
effiect : — "- An unbeliever came out from the fortress and brought 
intelligence of the submission of the princes and of the people, 
on whose behalf he prayed for grace and pardon. The Padischah 
received his prayer with favour, and granted them pardon. Inas- 
much as the German lands were unconnected with the Ottoman 
realm, that hence it was hard to occupy the frontier places and 
conduct their affairs, the faithful would not trouble themselves 
to clear out the fortress, or purify, improve, and put it into 
repair ; but a reward of 1000 aspers was dealt out to each of 
the Janissaries ; and security being established, the horses' heads 
were turned towards the throne of Solomon." 

Before the Vizier joined the column of retreat, a messenger 
was despatched to him with proposals for an' exchange of priso- 
ners. The Vizier presented the messenger with a rich caftan of 
blue silk, and returned the following answer written in bad 
Italian : — " Ibrahim Pacha, by the grace of God, first Vizier, 
Secretary and chief Councillor of the most glorious, great, and 
invincible Emperor, Sultan Soliman ; head and minister of his 
whole dominions, of his slaves and sandschaks, Generalissimo of 

* The purse held 500 piastres, or 60,000 aspers, which, at 50 aspers to the 
ducat, makes 6000 ducats. 



42 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. vii. 

his armies. Well-born, magnanimous officers and commanders, 
receiving your writing, sent by your messenger, we have digested 
its contents. Know that we are not come to take your city into 
our possession, but only to seek out your Archduke Ferdinand, 
whom however we have not found, and hence have waited here 
so many days, he not appearing. Yesterday moreover we set 
free three of our prisoners, for which reason you should be fain 
to do likewise by those in your possession, as we have desired 
your messenger to explain to you by word of mouth. You may 
therefore send hither one of your people to seek out your coun- 
trymen, and without fear or anxiety for our good faith, for what 
happened to those of Pesth was not our fault but their own. 
Given before Vienna in the middle of October." The above was 
written on smooth Italian paper, the signature alone and the 
signet impression in Turkish characters. The authorities in 
Vienna presented the bearer of this missive with an upper gar- 
ment of red damask, and sent him back with the verbal answer 
that they were the more anxious to deal strictly according to the 
usages of war, because they looked forward to much future matter 
for intercourse. If rightly reported, it must be confessed that 
both reply and rejoinder in this negotiation appear to have some- 
what lost sight of the point at issue. The contemporary writer, 
Labach, asserts that Soliman, after his withdrawal^ sent a mes- 
sage to the city containing an offer to withdraw on payment to 
him of 200,000 florins, to which the authorities made answer 
that the keys of their treasury were missing. 

On the 17th of October the Vizier really commenced his re- 
treat under a heavy snow-storm which lasted from early morning 
till late into the night. The day's march extended as far as 
Briick on the Leitha, and was one of great difficulty and attended 
with much loss of baggage. The garrison exerted itself to take 
advantage of these circumstances. A sally took place on the 
same day, under command of John Katzianer, Paul Bakics, and 
Sigismund von Weichselburg, with eight squadrons of cavalry 
and four companies of foot, in which many prisoners were made, 
many Christians rescued, and a rich booty captured in tents and 
camp furniture, together with some camels. On the 19th 
another sally was attended with still happier results. Near the 
village of Laa on the Wienerberg upwards of 200 Turks were 



CHAP. VII.] BY THE TURKS. 43 

slain, a Pacha captured, and many children rescued from cap- 
tivity. The Turkish rear-guard was thus annoyed, till, on the 
20th of October, it crossed the Hungarian frontier. The in- 
vaders, however, left fearful traces of their incursion over a vast 
extent of country, and on their line of retreat wreaked to the 
last their vengeance for the failure of their main purpose on 
every object animate and inanimate within their reach. To 
their usual practices of massacre, plunder, and incendiarism, 
they superadded the destruction of fruit-trees, vineyards, and 
gardens ; and the wretched inhabitants who had saved their lives 
by flight or concealment, returned to scenes of desolation which 
required years to repair. 

The loss of the invaders during the siege has been very 
variously stated, at numbers indeed varying from 80,000 to 
30,000. The Hungarian historian, Utvanffy, reduces this to 
20,000, and Ortelius to 14,000. The truth probably approaches 
the lower calculation, as, in the absence of all general encounter 
in the field, the loss in action fell heavily only on the storming- 
parties. The return of 1500 killed on the side of the city, 
though adopted in all the narratives, is manifestly below the 
truth, for we have seen that as early as the 11th October 636 
of the armed citizens were missing. On the 25th October, the 
tenth day from the raising of the siege, Soliman entered Pesth, 
where he was received with all honours by Zapolya. On the 
28th, in full divan, Zapolya renewed his homage, and was pre- 
sented with ten caftans and three horses, with bits and chains of 
gold. His minister, Ludovico Gritti, received 20,000 ducats. 
On the 30th, Soliman recommenced his march, and pursued it 
through Peterwaradin to Belgrade, which he reached only on 
the 20th November, having been much delayed by inundations. 
Much baggage remained behind in the swamps, and many men 
and horses perished of starvation. These incidents did not 
prevent Soliman from writing in a victorious strain to the 
Venetian Doge, Andreas Gritti. This letter, dated from Bel- 
grade, was written in Italian, and began with a pompous list of 
titles of sovereignty, comprising Asia and Europe generally ; 
and descending to particulars, Persia, Arabia, Syria; Mecca and 
Jerusalem, the whole territory of Egypt, and the shores of the 
Mediterranean. The letter further related how the Sultan had 



44 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. vit. 

^' taken from Ferdinand the kingdom of Hungary and invested 
with the same the Wayvode of Transylvania ; how with his 
Vizier Ibrahim, his Agas and Pachas, he had marched over 
Syria to Pesth, and there placed the crown of Hungary on the 
head of the Wayvode, and had looked for King Ferdinand in 
Vienna : but inasmuch as the latter had fled towards Prague, 
and it was impossible even to ascertain whether he were alive 
or dead, had again, at the end of twenty days, turned round 
towards Pesth and there received the homage of his vassal." 
The whole is a curious specimen of the perfection which this 
mode of describing occurrences had attained three centuries 
before our time. The tone is the same of most of the Turkish 
narratives of the day, all of which extol to the skies the mag- 
nanimity and moderation of the Sultan. One only, that of 
Ferdi, describes with some fidelity the devastation effected by 
the army. The national animosities of this writer are so violent 
that he calls Ferdinand by no other name than the " accursed." 
The conclusion of his narrative runs as follows: — " As it came 
to the ear of His Majesty that a portion of the Christian army had 
shut itself up in the city, and from this it was to be conjectured 
that the accursed Ferdinand was among them ; the victorious 
army besieged the said fortress for fifteen days, and overthrew 
the walls in five places by mines, so that the unbelievers 
prayed for mercy from the faithful. As some of the garrison 
were taken prisoners, and from these it was ascertained that the 
accursed was not in the fortress, the Imperial mercy forgave 
their offence, and listened to their entreaties ; but His Majesty, 
who governs the world, to gain the merits of this holy war, and 
to ruin the aforesaid accursed, had sent out the Akindschis, the 
runners and burners, in all directions into Germany, so that the 
whole country was trodden down by the hoofs of the horses, and 
even the lands north of the Danube wasted with fire b}'^ the 
crews of the vessels. Cities and hamlets, market-towns and 
villages, blazed up in the fire of vengeance and destruction. 
The beautiful land, the treasury of spring and abode of joy, was 
trodden down by the horsemen and filled with smoke. Houses 
and palaces were left in ashes. The victorious army dragged 
away captive the inhabitants, great and small, high and low, 
men and women, strong and weak. In the bazaars were sold 



CHAP. VII.] BY THE TURKS. 4.5 

many fair ones with jasmine foreheads, eyebrows arched and 
thick, and countenances like Peris ; and the booty was incalcu- 
lable. Property, moveable and immoveable, men and cattle, 
the speaking and the dumb, the rational and the senseless, were 
destroyed and slaughtered at the edge of the sabre. Thus on 
the page of time was written the fulfilment of the prophecy of 
the Koran, ' Thus deal we with the wicked.' " 

On the 28th November, the Sultan reached Constantinople, 
and made his triumphal entry with the portion of his army 
which had least suffered by the march. The greater part of the 
exhausted troops remained at Belgrade, Nissa, and Adrianople 
to recruit their strength and numbers ; for the Sultan was 
passionately intent upon retrieving his failure, and prosecuting 
with new resources his plans for the establishment of an Empire 
of the West. Years, however, were required to place his forces 
on a footing for another expedition, the results of which will 
be hereafter disclosed. 



46 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. viii. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

From November 20 to the end of the year 1529. 

Although for the moment Vienna was relieved from dread of 
the Turk, other causes of distress and apprehension survived the 
removal of the main danger, and required equally the application 
of violent remedies. Not to mention that the open country was 
long infested with roving parties of Turkish marauders who 
were little interfered with by a soldiery who had forgotten their 
own discipline in the excitement of success, in Vienna itself this 
spirit displayed itself in a fearful insurrection of the troops of 
the Empire, which threatened the citizens with greater calamities 
than even those of the siege itself. On the ground that they 
had repulsed five main attacks, they demanded fivefold pay ; and 
as it was impossible at once to concede this demand, they indi- 
cated, not obscurely, an intention to pay themselves by a general 
plunder of the city. The authorities attempted in the first 
instance to appease them with fair words and moral reflections. 
These only led to increased demands, and at length to distinct 
threats of a total rejection of military obedience, and of a general 
assault on persons and property. The invitation of one of their 
ensigns, Paul Gumpenberger, for every man to rally round his 
colours who would be content with double pay, had, it is true, 
the desired effect, so far that several reasonable men broke off 
from the mass and rescued for the moment the superior officers 
from their turbulent comrades. On the following day, however, 
the clamour and the menaces were revived with increased violence. 
The Pfalzo-raf Frederick, who had meanwhile arrived in Vienna, 
promised them now threefold pay, with which the greater num- 
ber were satisfied, but it was not till the ringleaders had been 
executed that tranquillity was entirely restored. The troops 
were finally divided and marched ofiP, some to Pressburg, others 
to Altenburg in Hungary, and with their departure confidence 



CHAP. VIII.] BY THE TURKS. 47 

revived and the citizens were enabled to commenoe the work of 
restoration and repair both of their defences and of the houses 
which had suffered by the enemy's fire. The whole of the ex- 
tensive space occupied by the fortifications now existing, as well 
as the glacis, both of which at this period were covered with 
buildings, were now cleared of such, and the repeated and obsti- 
nate attempts of the former proprietors to rebuild their dwellings 
as obstinately resisted. By the same operation the booths, so 
called, of the suburb vanished for ever, and when, some three 
years later, the alarm of invasion was revived, the extensive 
remains still standing of the Burgher hospital, and of many 
other large buildings and churches between the river Wien 
and the city, were levelled to the ground. In exchange for 
the vast and richly endowed Burgher hospital, the ruins of 
which had afforded the Turks so excellent a position in front of 
the Karnthner gate, the city obtained in 1580 the nunnery of St. 
Clara, the nuns of which, reduced in numbers by the Reformation, 
had fled to another establishment of their order at Yillach in 
Carinthia. Those who returned to Vienna after the siege were 
received in the Pilgrim-house near St. Anne, where they gradu- 
ally died out, and their former buildings were formally made 
over to the city, out of which has since grown the great hospital 
now existing. 

Original Narrative of the Adventures of the Cornet Christopher 
von Zedlitz in the Turkish Camp, From the Collection of the 
Baron von Enenkel in the State Archives at Vienna. 

Among such praiseworthy Christian Knights, may also justly 
be celebrated the honourable and noble Knight and Master, 
Christopher von Czetliz, who in his honourable knightly deeds 
against the hereditary enemy of Christendom, the Turk, has 
learned and known the use and profit of diligent prayer, and how to 
acquit oneself with the Psalter or Pray er-Bookof the good Knight 
and King, David, much better than other careless, idle, godless 
people, who take no account of psalm or paternoster ; for when 
in years past the Turkish tyrant, Soliman, with a terrible power 
came from Constantinople upon Hungary, and having marched 
280 German miles, without reckoning the bendings of roads and 
by-ways, sat down before Vienna, as it were at the door of the 



48 TWO SIEGES OP VIENNA, [chap. viii. 

old and famous German people, so that all Germany behoved to 
be stirring', then did this noble Knight, Christopher, essay him- 
self often and manfully against the enemy. 

Firstly, before Comorn ; secondly, at the coronation at 
Stuhlweissenburg, where he distinguished himself among all the 
other knights there present, and exhibited himself before the 
king in knightly fashion, in tilting-feats, which no one could 
repeat after him, and which the chivalry present and his Ma- 
jesty himself had much content to witness ; and the latter soon 
after ordered him a cornetcy under the Count von Hardegg, when 
Pesth was recovered from the Turk. When Soliman in 1529 
retook Pesth, and marched upon Vienna, Cornet Christopher was . 
in the latter city, attached to the principal in command, when^i^ 
and where he gained much honour in skirmishing, and was ! 
moreover made prisoner, as will be related. In 1530, having 
been meanwhile knighted by his Majesty, he marched again to 
Pesth, under Count Hardegg, for the recovery of that city, 
where he joined himself with one Von Heussenstein, agreeing 
together to mount to the assault, as they did, and got as far as n 
the breach, where, inasmuch as the others did not follow like 
men, but remained in the ditch. Cornet Christopher was hardly 
entreated, a Nimptsch (one of the family of JNimptsch) shot by « 
his side, and he thrown back into the ditch ; and this siege 
passed without success. In 1532, when the Turk was minded 
again to march on Vienna, but who for the good fortune of the 
Emperor Charles, who joined King Ferdinand in person at 
Vienna, had turned off to Giins, against which he failed in 
several assaults. Cornet Christopher was at the head of some 
knights from the principalities of Sohweidnitz and Janer ; and 
when some on our side skirmished with the Turk at Neustadt, 
he advanced in front of all, and assailed and dismounted a Turk 
of consideration ; — not to mention that he was somewhat ailinor, 
and enfeebled by his march, so that so soon as he had found his 
way back to Breslau, he departed in God, helped surely by a 
Turkish syrup which he had taken, and which worked the 
stronger with time. For when, in the year before mentioned 
(1529), the Turk assailed Vienna, this noble knight had fallen 
upon him, and well conducted himself, and in a skirmish had 
fallen from and parted company with his horse, which had not 



CHAP. VIII.] BY THE TURKS. 49 

trusted itself to come back to him, and a cry being raised to save 
the standard, which was performed by a Fleming, Cornet Chris- 
topher had taken post on a small round hillock, where three 
Turks perceived and assaulted him, but he with his sword stood 
at bay, and stuck one of their horses in the head, and would have 
got clear off, but that twelve other Turks assailed him before and 
behind, and by numbers struck him to the ground ; and when 
he had wounded one of these through the arm, they wrung his 
sword from him, and endeavoured to loose his armour, but as he 
was armed with a whole cuirass, no one could strip him, else, 
without doubt, in their fury they would have sabred and cut him 
to pieces. As it was they made him prisoner, and carried him 
off among them, by the side of their horses, a good quarter of a 
mile, and then set him in his cuirass on a baggage-mule, and 
carried him on through the night as far as Briick on the Leitha, 
the head quarter of the Turkish emperor. When they entered 
the camp there was much concourse to see a figure in full har- 
ness, cuirass, and head-piece, all screwed up, so that there was 
nothing but sheer iron to be seen ; then one of the bystanders 
spoke to him in the Croat tongue, and asked him what he could 
do and compass, having such a load of iron on him ; and he an- 
swered : " Had I a horse, and were I loose and free, thou 
wouldst then quickly see what I could do." Being further 
asked whether he. Yon Zedlitz, could touch the ground 
with his fist, he quickly bent himself down thereto : mean- 
while the girth of the baggage -saddle burst, and he fell with a 
crash to the ground ; and when the Turks began to laugh, he 
(Von Zedlitz) rose nimbly up, and, without a run, jumped in his 
heavy armour on the tall mule, so that the Turks admired and 
forbore to laugh. In this expedition there was about the Em- 
peror Ibrahim (in German Emerich) Pacha, an eminent and 
notable man, the next to Solyman in that day, ruler and minister 
of everything in the Turkish realm, and who in this war coun- 
selled and directed everything. Before him when Von Zedlitz 
was brought, he gave order that they should take him out of his 
armour ; but among the Turks was no man familiar with 
knightly equipmerjt, who could deal with the manner of fasten- 
ing of such a cuirass, then no longer much used and quite 



50 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. viii. 

unknown to the Turks, and he remained armed till questioned 
by Solyman himself. To him Count Christopher made answer, 
that if assured of his life he would undo himself. When Ibra- 
him Pacha had given him such assurance, he showed the inter- 
preter two little screws at the side, which being loosed, the 
cuirass came to its pieces, to the great wonder of the Turks. 
When he had laid aside his harness, the Turks, observing a gold 
chain about him, fell upon him violently to tear it off; but he, 
seizing it with both hands, tore it in pieces and flung it among 
them. They also took from him his seal and ring, and on ac- 
count of the gold, concluded him to be of great means and con- 
dition ; but he held himself out for a gentleman of small means, 
who had won these things in war. As the account of these 
things spread itself through the camp, much was said of the 
feats of this man-at-arms, and of his singular dexterity under 
his strange attire, and every one was curious to see him, being, 
moreover, among the first who had been taken prisoners out of 
the city itself of Vienna. He was, therefore, ordered to exhibit 
himself in full cuirass, armed at all points for ^ght, and to 
prove whether in this fashion he could, without vantage, lift 
himself from the ground. On the following day, mules and 
several kicking horses being produced. Count Christopher laid 
himself on the ground with his cuirass screwed, and rising 
nimbly, without anj vantage, sprung on a horse, and this he 
repeated several times; and then, with running and vaulting, 
afforded those hellhounds a princely spectacle of knightly exer- 
cises to their great admiration, and specially that of Ibrahim 
Pacha, who soon after took him to himself, and kept him safe in 
his own custody. Meanwhile, there came to him certain officers 
to frighten or to prove him, telling him to hold himself in 
readiness, for that the Pacha would do him right that same day. 
To these he answered, that as a Christian he was in truth 
not afraid of death ; as one who, in honour of his Eedeemer, 
in obedience to his sovereign, and in defence of his country, 
had prepared himself by prayer for death at any hour or instant, 
and hoped and believed most certainly to enjoy eternal joy and 
happiness through Christ ; but, nevertheless, could not credit 
that such was the order of the Pacha, for he knew for certain 



CHAP, VIII.] BY THE TURKS. 51 

that what the Pacha had promised he would perform like an 
honourable soldier. When this reached the Pacha, the longer 
he considered the more he admired, not only the knightly feats, 
but the noble spirit of this hero. When, also, Soliman himself 
asked him whether, if he (Soliman) should release him, he would 
still make war upon him, Count Christopher answered, undis- 
mayed, that if God and his Redeemer should grant him deliver- 
ance, he would while life lasted fight against the Turks more 
hotly than ever. Thereupon the Sultan replied, " Thou shalt 
be free, my man, and make war on me as thou wilt for the rest 
of thy life." Soliman knew perhaps well that he would not live 
long, for it has been conjectured that the Turks had given him 
a potion, which in a few years attacked his life and carried him 
off. , The Pacha, however, kept him in good case while the 
siege lasted, namely, about a month ; and in place of his cuirass, 
gave him a dress of red velvet Tyrian stuff, which he wore and 
lay in night and day, and sent him from his own table meats and 
mixed drinks (probably sherbet), as daily prepared for himself, 
and even in course of time offered and gave him wine.* The 
Count, for special reasons, gave himself out for a Bohemian, 
being conversant in the Slave language, which is much in use 
with the Turks. When it came to the time appointed for the 
great assault, the Pacha said to him at table, " This evening 
will the great Sultan take possession of Vienna, and it will fare 
ill with your people," and then asked him further, how strong 
the garrison was ; and the Count answered, " All that he could 
tell was, that the garrison within were of that stamp that they 
would one and all be killed before they would surrender the 
city." When the assault took place, the Count was left in the 
Pacha's tent without any special guard, but loose and free of his 
person, and able to look about him in the camp ; but when, by 
help of God, the Turks being repulsed broke up their camp, the 
Pacha took the Count with him the first day's march, but in 
the morning after put another Turkish robe of velvet on him 

* This specimen of favouritism, won, not by mean arts, but by soldierlike 
and simple bearing, does honour to both parties. No one in these days 
would, like the Chronicler, give credit to the tale of slow poison with which 
his credulity impairs the merit justly due to the Turk. Even were it more 
consistent than it is with the character of Soliman or his minister, it is 
obviously irreconcilable with the other parts recorded. — E. 

e2 



52 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. viii. 



over the former, which is still preserved by his brothers, Francis 
and Hans von Zedlitz ; and added a present of a hundred aspers, 
and also a cavalry prisoner whom the Count knew and had 
begged for, and caused them to be honourably attended and 
passed safe, so that on the following day they reached Vienna, 
where the Count was honourably received by the princes, counts, 
gentlemen, and officers there present. 

Notice of the Devastation effected by the Turks ^ from Original 

Sources, 

The general character of the operations of the Sackman has 
been sufficiently described. From the foot of the Kahlenberg, 
from Heiligenstadt and Dobling to the shore of the Leitha,Jiis 
presence was proclaimed by the smoke of burning villages, and 
his march was tracked by wasted fields and vineyards. In the 
first days of the investment of Vienna the vineyards of Heiligen- 
stadt had been destroyed by the Bosnian light troops ; and on 
the day of the last assault its failure was avenged by the indis- 
criminate massacre of the inhabitants. At Dobling the pastor, 
Peter Heindl, was flung on a burning pile of the registers and 
archives of the district. Hiitteldorf, St. Veit, Brunn^ and 
Enzersdorf were burnt. In Perchtoldsdorf the inhabitants in- 
deed held out in the castle, but every thing beyond its walls was 
destroyed. From the fortress of Lichtenstein the eldest son of 
its possessor of that day was dragged into slavery. In Closter- 
Neuburg the upper town and the ecclesiastical buildings held out, 
but the lower was destroyed. Baden shared its fate. The de- 
stroyers penetrated even into Upper Austria, and thence into 
Styria, where, however, they on several occasions met with their 
match, for the people rose upon their scattered bands, and burned 
alive those whom they overpowered. A detachment also crossed 
the Danube in thirty vessels, and made an incursion on the left 
bank. After having set fire to th evillage and castle of Schmida, 
they were surprised and in great part destroyed by a body of 
200 cavalry under Count Hardegg. A number of fugitives 
were pursued to the shore, and perished in an over-crowded 
vessel, which went to the bottom. Another body, which, 
disturbed in its occupation of plunder, had taken refuge in a 
tower near Kornenburg, were surrounded and cut to pieces by 



CHAP, vni.] BY THE TURKS. 53 

the land bailiff George von Leuclitenberg, and the Bavarian 
colonel of cavalry Wolfgang von Weichs. In spite of these 
isolated acts of vengeance and resistance, upwards of 20,000 
Christians were slaughtered or dragged into slavery ; and but 
few of the latter, most of them young persons of either sex and 
priests, ever returned. It is a remarkable fact, proved from all 
the original accounts, that the Turks preferred making slaves of 
the clergy to the putting them to death ; possibly, for the pleasure 
of tormenting them at leisure. According to a contemporary 
narrative, upwards of 14,000 of the Akindschis perished in these 
desultory conflicts. Taking their whole force at the number, 
usually admitted, of 40,000, the proportion is not improbable. 



BOOK 11. 

FROM THE END OF THE FIRST SIEGE OF VIENNA TO THAT 
OF THE SECOND. 1530 to. 1684. 



CHAPTER I. 

1530 to 1538. 



The close of the year 1529 had been made memorable in the 
annals of Christendom by the retreat of Soiiman. He had re- 
tired not without loss and a degree of exhaustion which pro- 
mised an interval at least of repose to the countries he had so 
cruelly ravaged. He was, however, neither satiated with blood 
nor discouraged by that signal failure of the main object of his 
expedition which the Turkish historiographers strove in vain to 
conceal beneath the flowers of Oriental eloquence. So early as 
in the spring of 1532, he poured down upon Hungary and Styria 
a force even more numerous than that which had invested Vienna. 
Some have computed it at 600,000 men, probably an exaggera- 
tion ; but Ortelius, a writer generally to be depended upon, speaks 
of 500,000, and of these 300,000 horsemen. The first serious 
resistance which this immense accumulation of numerical force 
had to encounter, was opposed to it by the inconsiderable and 
scarcely fortified town, Giins. The defence of this place ranks 
high among the instances in which patience and resolution, 
arrayed behind very feeble defences, have baffled all the efforts 
of numbers stimulated by the hope of plunder and a strong sense 
of the disgrace of failure. Nicholas Jurechieh, a Croatian noble- 
man, was the leader to whom the credit of this defence is due. 
In the character of ambassador extraordinary from Ferdinand to 
the Sultan, he had very recently displayed firmness, temper, and 
sagacity ; and now, behind walls which had been mined in thirteen 
different places, and which presented a practicable breach eight 



56 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap, l 

fathoms wide, with a body of troops originally of insignificant num- 
bers and reduced by eleven assaults, he met with unshaken reso- 
lution a twelfth desperate attempt of the enemy. It was all but 
fatal. The troops were nearly driven from the walls, upon which 
eight Turkish standards were already planted, when a shout of 
despair raised by the women and unarmed inhabitants of the place 
was mistaken by the assailants for the cheer of a reinforcement. 
The garrison profited by a moment of hesitation, and again suc- 
ceeded in their noble effort. For twenty-five days they had occu- 
pied the whole force of the Turkish Empire in a fruitless attempt, — 
a period fully sufficient to exhaust the patience of the brave and 
impetuous but ill-disciplined armies of the faithful. The Sultan, 
unwilling to waste a further portion of the best season and of 
his best troops before a place so unimportant in itself, adopted 
his usual expedient in such cases, magnanimity. He invited the 
commanders under a safe conduct to his presence, complimented 
them on their conduct, and making them a present of the town 
and citadel, a donation founded on a right of property on which 
they had no inclination to raise a verbal dispute, for the utter 
exhaustion of their resources of all kinds would have rendered 
further resistance impossible, withdrew his forces ; not however, 
as was expected, in the direction of Neustadt and Vienna. He 
marched, on the contrary, up the course of the Mur, by roads of 
the most difficult and harassing description ; and, establishing 
himself in Styria, sat down before Gratz, which, after a tedious 
siege, he took and ransacked, but failed to reduce the citadel. 
Some writers are of opinion that this diversion of his force, in 
fact a circuitous retreat, was the work of the Vizier Ibrahim, 
who had been bribed by Charles V. ^TsTothing has been discovered 
in the Austrian archives which contain the state secrets of the 
time, and no passage has been detected by such inquirers as Von 
Hammer in the pages of Turkish history to favour this sup- 
position. The bribe also must have been a large one which 
could have influenced the conduct of a man who had the treasure 
of the seven towers at his disposal. A far more natural cause 
may be assigned for the movements of the Sultan. The relative 
position of the two parties was very difiTerent from that of 1529. 
It is true the frontier provinces were, as then, exposed to the first 
onset of the invader ; but the preparations of the House of Aus- 



OHAP. I.] BY THE TURKS. 57 



tria for defence were further advanced, better organized, and on 
a more respectable scale than before. 

The Emperor Charles in person had put himself at the head 
of the troops of the Empire, and had well employed the interval 
'' of security which the delay of the Sultan before the town of 
Giins had afforded him. With an army rated at 260,000 men, 
of which however only 126,000 were combatants, namely, 96,000 
infantry and 30,000 cavalry, he lay encamped at no great dis- 
tance from Vienna. In his former campaign Soli man had 
sought in vain for the accursed Ferdinand, and had made much 
of his disappointment in the bulletins from his camp and in the 
pages of his servile historiographers. He was probably not 
equally desirous of falling in with such an antagonist as Charles, 
at the head of an untouched force of this magnitude. The 
sudden direction of his army upon provinces bare of troops, but 
which contained plunder to be gathered, and villages to be 
burned, and helpless people to be slaughtered, was a safe and a 
" tempting, though inglorious proceeding. These were the mo- 
^ • tives, as far as inquiry can now detect them, which postponed to 
^^a subsequent century the great spectacle of actual collision in 
r Ihe field between the main armies of Turkey and the Empire. 
*^ Austria meanwhile derived from the postponement of so tremen- 
dous an issue no immunity from a repetition of the horrors of 
the last invasion. While the main Turkish army occupied 
Styria, the bands of Michael Oglou were again let loose upon 
her plains, re-enacting, up to the walls of Lintz and Vienna, 
every former atrocity. If, however, they were allowed for a 
period thus to extend and pursue their ravages, they came at 
laist within reach, not merely of the partial resistance by which 
the more adventurous of their parties had before been occasion- 
ally cut off, but of the heavy blows of a disciplined enemy. 
Vienna itself was in a state of defence which fully secured it 
against any attack from the irregular troops of the Turks ; and 
it is not probable that Soliman at any time had contemplated 
a renewal of his attempt upon that city with his main army, 
for he had again left his heavy artillery behind ; and all his 
preparations tended to a pitched battje in the open field. The 
Pfalzgraf Frederick was able, therefore, with a strong detach- 
ment, to address himself to the deliverance of the open country 



58 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. i. 

from the marauders, and took up a position at Enzesfeld, which 
threatened the communications of Michael Oglou with Styria. 
The latter commenced a hasty retreat in the direction of Neu- 
stadt and Pottenstein ; but the principal passes of the mountains 
beyond were already occupied by the Pfalzgraf ; and a strong 
force of arquebuziers under a skilful officer, Sebastian Scheitl, 
moved upon his rear by Kaumberg. On the 18th of September, 
his main column, encumbered with plunder and with 4000 
prisoners, was suddenly attacked by this detachment, and driven 
through Pottenstein towards the defiles in front, which were 
strongly occupied by the Pfalzgraf. . The savage leader, thus 
caught in the toils, kept up his character for courage and cruelty 
to the last. He directed an instant and indiscriminate massacre 
of his prisoners, setting the example with his own hand ; and, 
dividing his forces into two bodies, scattered one into the path- 
less forests to the south, and headed the other and main body in 
a desperate attempt to cut its way to the front by the valley of 
Stahremberg. He fell among the foremost. His jewelled 
helmet, appropriately adorned with vultures' wings, was con- 
veyed to Ferdinand, and may still be seen in the Ambros Mu- 
seum at Vienna. On his fall, the command was assumed by his 
lieutenant, Osman, who struggled through the defiles only to fall 
in opener ground upon the troops of the Empire commanded by 
the Count Lodovic and the Margrave Joachim of Brandenburg. 
Tired horses and despairing riders fell an easy prey, not only to 
the troops, but to the peasantry. Attacked by the latter in the 
neighbourhood of Siebenstein, many were forced over a pictu- 
resque precipice, which still bears the name of the " Turkish 
Fall." Osman himself fell by the hand of Paul Bakics, who 
bore him from the saddle with his lance, and finished him with 
his own jewelled dagger, which hung at his saddle-bow. Of this 
division of the robber force, nearly 18,000 strong, it is said that 
not one escaped. Those who were detached through the forests 
had better fortune. Part, at least of them, efifected their junc- 
tion with Soliman in Styria. In Austria the Sackman was seen 
no more. In Hungary, indeed, and Styria, their excesses con- 
tinued for some years, but the frontier of Austria proper was 
henceforth secure. In the battle of Guirgewo against the Poles in 
1596, the last remnant of the Akindschis was destroyed, and the 



CHAP, i] BY THE TURKS. 59 

name appears no more in the Turkish annals. On the 2nd of 
October the Emperor Charles Y. and his brother Ferdinand 
descended the river from Lintz, and were formally received at 
Vienna on the 3rd. A great review was held, at which Charles, 
to conciliate the Hungarians, appeared in the costume of that 
country. Soliman, on receiving intelligence of the fate of 
Michael Oglou, pursued his retreat with so much precipitancy 
and confusion, that if Charles had followed him with activity, 
the fate of Hungary must have been decided. The affairs of 
religion, however, were nearer to the heart of Charles than those 
of Hungary, and the approaching convocation of the Council of 
Trent attracting him to Italy, the golden opportunity was lost. 
Zapolya retained possession of his throne, under the protection 
of 60,000 Turks encamped on the bank of the Drave. In 1538 
the peace of Grosswaradin was concluded, in which Ferdinand 
recognised the usurper as King of Hungary in the portion of that 
country occupied by him, and as Way vode of Transylvania, in 
return for the reversion of that kingdom on Zapolya's death, 
whose son, should he leave one, was to enjoy only the hereditary 
succession of his house, the Countship of Zips. 



60 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [oeiap. ii. 



CHAPTER II. 



1539 to 1566. 



In 1539, Zapolya, advanced in age, but anxious to bequeath his 
powers of mischief to a lineal descendant, contracted a marriage 
with Isabella of Poland. His wishes were gratified in the fol- 
lowing year by the birth of a son ; an event which he himself 
survived only twenty-four days. The ambitious mother, setting 
at defiance the terms of the treaty of Grosswaradin, asserted the 
claim of her child to the throne of Hungary, and invoked the 
protection of the Sultan. The secrecy with which the treaty of 
Grosswaradin had been concluded between Ferdinand and Za- 
polya had excited the deep indignation of the Sultan ; and 
though, as might be supposed, fully determined to prevent its 
fulfilment in favour of Ferdinand, he was little inclined to allow 
the widow and race of Zapolya to profit by its infraction. In 
June, 1641, he for the ninth time took the field in person ; and 
in August he appeared before Pesth, from which a besieging 
army of Ferdinand had lately been repulsed with loss. On the 
29th August, the fifteenth anniversary of the battle of Mohacs, 
the infant Zapolya was brought into his camp, and Pesth ad- 
mitted a Turkish garrison. Much negotiation passed with the 
widowed queen ; presents and civil speeches abounded on both 
sides ; and finally she received, and counted probably at its real 
value, the solemn assurance of the Sultan that the capital should 
be restored to her son on the attainment of his majority. Mean- 
while the young Zapolya was acknowledged as Wayvode of 
Transylvania ; but a purely Turkish administration was organised 
and placed in authority over the whole extent of that portion of 
the kingdom of Hungary which had been under the real or 
nominal sovereignty of Zapolya. In a small part of it the 
House of Austria had all along maintained itself; nor did that 
power submit to the summary appropriation of the remainder by 



CHAP. II.] BY THE TURKS. 61 

the enemy of Christendom. For many a year, and through many 
a reign, Hungary continued the field of a struggle of race and 
religion, which the temporary exhaustion of either or both 
parties could but occasionally interrupt, and in which, during 
the lifetime of Ferdinand, the Turks had generally the advantage. 
In 1547, an armistice of five years was purchased by humiliating 
concessions on the part of Austria. Punctually at the expiration 
of the period hostilities were resumed, and continued without 
cessation or decisive result to the death of Ferdinand in 1564, 
and into the reign of his successor Maximilian II. In the pro- 
secution of the struggle, this wise sovereign reaped advantage 
from the system of toleration which he extended to the powerful 
Protestant party in Hungary. 

The Hungarian campaign of 1566 was distinguished by the 
famous siege of the small fortress of Szigeth, and the self-immo- 
lation of its defender, the Hungarian Leonidas, Nicholas, Count 
of Zi iny. In early life he had distinguished himself at the siege 
of Vienna ; and having pursued a successful career in arms, 
held under the present Emperor the chief command on the right 
bank of the Danube. Soliman had undertaken the siege of 
Erlau ; and the Pacha of Bosnia was on the march with rein- 
forcements, when he was attacked near Siklos by Zriny, com- 
pletely defeated, and slain. The Sultan, furious at this disaster, 
raised the siege of Erlau and marched with 100,000 men upon 
Zriny, who, with scarcely 2500, flung himself into Szigeth, with 
the resolution never to surrender it ; a resolution to which his 
followers cheerfully bound themselves by an oath. To the 
utmost exertion of his vast military means of attack, Soliman 
added not only the seduction of brilliant promises, but the more 
cogent threat of putting to death the son of Zriny, who had 
fallen into his hands. All was in vain. The Sultan's letter was 
used by Zriny as wadding for his own musket ; and for seven- 
teen days the town held out against repeated assaults. The 
enfeebled garrison were then driven to the lower castle, and at 
last to the upper one. No hope remained of repelling another 
general assault, for which the Turkish preparations were carried 
forward with the utmost vigour under the eye of the Sultan, 
who, however, was not destined to witness their issue. On the 
6th of September he was found dead in his tent, having thus 



62 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. ii. 

closed^ at the age of seventy-six, by a tranquil and natural death, 
a reign of forty-five years, which for activity and variety of 
military enterprise, for expenditure of human life, and for the 
diffusion of the miseries of warfare, unmitigated by the conven- 
tional usages and inventions of later times, could scarcely find 
its parallel. His decease afforded no respite to the besieged. 
The event was kept a rigid secret from the soldiery by the 
Vizier Ibrahim, who adopted the Oriental precaution of putting 
to death the physicians in attendance. Zriny did not wait for 
the final assault. On the 8th September the Turks were press- 
ing forward along a narrow bridge to the castle, when the gate 
was suddenly flung open, a large mortar loaded with broken iron 
was discharged into their ranks, according to their own historians 
killing 600 of them, and close upon its discharge Zriny and his 
faithful band sallied forth to die. His resolution was evinced by 
some characteristic preparations. From four swords he chose a 
favourite weapon which he had worn in the first campaigns of 
his youth, and, determined not to fall alive into the hands of his 
enemies, he wore no defensive armour. He fastened to his 
person the keys of the castle and a purse of a hundred ducats, 
carefully counted and selected, of the coinage of Hungary. 
'' The man who lays me out," he said, " shall not complain that 
he found nothing upon me. When I am dead, let him who may 
take the keys and the ducats. No Turk shall point at me while 
alive with his finger." The banner of the Empire was borne 
before him by Laurence Juranitsch. In this guise, followed by 
his 600 remaining comrades, he rushed upon the enemy, and by 
two musket-shots through the body and an arrow in the head 
obtained the release he sought. With some of his followers the 
instinct of self-preservation prevailed so far that they retired 
from the massacre which followed into the castle, where some 
few were captured alive. It is said also that some were spared 
in the conflict by the Janissaries, who, admiring their courage, 
placed their own caps on their heads for the purpose of saving 
them. Three Pachas, 7000 Janissaries, and the scarcely credible 
number of 28,000 other soldiers, are said to have perished before 
this place. The Yizier Ibrahim's life was saved by one of 
Zriny's household, who was taken in the castle, which the 
Vizier had entered with his troops. This man, to the Vizier's 



CHAP. II.] BY THE TURKS. 63 

inquiry after treasure, replied that it had been long expended, 
but that 3000 lbs. of powder were then under their feet, to which 
a slow match had been attached. The Vizier and his mounted 
officers had just time to escape, but 3000 Turks perished in the 
explosion which shortly followed. Zriny's head was sent to the 
Emperor ; his body was honourably buried, as some accounts 
state, by the hands of a Turk who had been his prisoner, and well 
treated by him. Szigeth never recovered from its destruction, 
and some inconsiderable ruins alone mark the scene of Zriny's 
glory. 



64 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap, hi 



CHAPTER III. 



1566 to 1664. 



SoLiMAN was succeeded on the throne by Selim II., son of 
a favourite slave, Roxalana. The male issue of the other 
inmates of the royal harem, whether wives or concubines, had 
been remorselessly sacrificed to secure the undisputed succession 
of one who proved the first of his race to set an example of 
degeneracy from the qualities which had made his predecessors 
the terror of Christendom. Under the rule of Soliman the 
power and reputation of the Porte had reached a point of eleva- 
tion from which it rapidly declined under his sensual and 
inactive successor, and to which it has never re-ascended. The 
structure, indeed, raised by the warrior founders of the Ottoman 
dynasty, survived, without suffering material injury or diminution, 
too long for the peace and safety of Europe ; but this permanence 
was due less to its own solidity than to the jealousies and 
dissensions of the Christian powers, political and religious, but 
more especially the latter. Within two years of Selim's accession, 
in 1568, he concluded with the Emperor Maximilian an armi- 
stice on the basis of their respective occupation of territory, by 
which the Turk remained in possession of Lower Hungary. In 
1575 this compact was renewed for eight years. The younger 
Zapolya had previously agreed that after his decease the govern- 
ment of Transylvania should devolve by election upon a Way- 
vode, a subject of the crown of Hungary ; and on his death, in 
1571, Steven von Bathory had been accordingly elected. This 
prince subsequently attained the crown of Poland, and in 1589 
his cousin, Sigismund, made over Transylvania to Hungary, In. 
1590, in the reign of Rodolph IL, son and successor to Maximi- 
lian, war again broke out between Austria and Turkey, and was 
prosecuted with much bitterness, but with alternations of success 
which led to no important results. In 1595 the Turks, after two 



CHAP. III. BY THE TURKS. 65 

years of discomfiture, recovered themselves so far as to approach 
the Austrian frontier in force, and seriously to threaten Vienna. 
The landsturm of that city was called out, and the defences 
were strengthened in all haste ; but the force of Turkish inva- 
sion spent itself upon Upper Hungary. Several strong places in 
that district having been surrendered, as was alleged, by treason 
and cowardice, Vienna became during several years the scene of 
bloody executions. Thus, in 1595, Ferdinand Count Hardegg, 
and several of his officers, expiated on the scaffold the surrender 
of Raab. In the same year an engineer, Francis Diano, was 
executed on a charge of having undertaken to blow up the 
Rothenthurm bastion on the appearance of a Turkish force. 
Raab, after three years and a half possession by the Turks, was 
retaken by the Austrian commanders, Rodolph Schwarzenberg 
and Nicholas Palfy, an important service which the Emperor 
Rodolph acknowledged by the erection of columnar monu- 
ments, and by the addition of a raven to the escutcheon of 
the Schwarzenbergs. One of the columns remains to this 
day in the neighbourhood of Modling. In 1600 a mutinous 
project for the surrender of the fortress Papa was detected 
and suppressed by summary execution, and fifteen of the leaders 
were reserved for a more terrible example at Vienna, twelve 
of whom were quartered and three impaled. It would be 
tedious and disgusting to pursue the list of similar atrocities 
perpetrated both at Vienna and in the frontier fortresses. The 
Austrian authorities would appear to have considered that the 
devices of Oriental cruelty were the only remedies or preventives 
for treason and cowardice, and to have overlooked the fact that 
many of the misdemeanours so savagely punished were attributable 
to their own maladministration, to the inactivity of the Emperor^ 
and to the maltreatment and non-payment of the soldiery. In 
1609 the Archduke Mathias assumed the practical exercise of 
sovereignty, and on his formal succession to the imperial throne 
on the death of Rodolph in 1612, he transferred the imperial 
residence from Prague to Vienna. Under his administration 
better measures were applied to the existing evils than those 
which had, by their use and their failure, disgraced the reign of 
Rodolph. Mathias found himself shortly after his coronation 
compelled to prepare for a renewal of hostilities with the Turks, 

F 



66 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. hi. 

who were now in possession of the whole of Hungary and Tran- 
sylvania, in addition to Moldavia and Wallaehia. When, how- 
ever, he made application to the states of the empire, the Pro- 
testants, by far the majority, excused themselves on the allegation 
that no powers had been delegated to them to furnish aid to a 
Turkish war, and they recommended forbearance and delay in 
dealing with the hereditary enemy of Christendom. Mathias 
had no resource but to conclude an armistice for twenty years, 
which the Turks, on their part, exhausted by the long previous 
struggle, and no longer led by such a ruler as Soliman, were not 
reluctant to accept. They retained, however, their conquests. 
This truce was observed with scrupulous and unshaken fidelity 
by the Turks under five feeble successors of Selim II., (Murad 
III., Mohammed III., Achmet I., Mustapha I., Osman II.) 
By this honourable forbearance, practised under strong temptation 
of advantage from its infraction and in resistance to the allure- 
ments of Christian powers, especially of France, Austria during 
the thirty years' war enjoyed immunity from attack on the most 
assailable portion of her frontier. Even Amurath IV., who 
ascended the throne in 1623, and was the first of Soliman's suc- 
cessors who showed symptoms of a warlike spirit, concluded a 
fresh truce with Austria, and thus the Turks remained tranquil 
through the first half of the seventeenth century. In fact, the 
moral energy of their race had declined while civilization and 
attendant power had progressed in Christian Europe, and no 
exertion could have raised them to their former elevation. 
Amurath's son and successor Ibrahim, notorious for his vices 
and cruel actions, was strangled in 1648. He was succeeded by 
Mohammed IV., a boy seven years of age, during whose minority 
confusion reigned supreme. His grandmother and mother con- 
tended for power, and Janissaries and Spahis fought over the 
dead bodies of viziers, murdered in rapid succession for the spoil, 
till they met, a.d. 1656, with a master in the energetic Mo- 
hammed Kinperli. Under his administration internal licence 
was repressed by measures of salutary severity, and when foreign 
war again broke out it was conducted by him in a manner which 
revived the terror of the Turkish name. This war had its origin 
in the troubles of Hungary and Transylvania. The Transyl- 
vanians, on the death of tlieir sovereign George Rakoczy, second 



CHAP. III.] BY THE TURKS. 67 

of that name, elected as his successor a distinguished leader of 
his army, John Kemeni, who entered into an alliance with the 
Emperor Leopold I. At the instigation, however, of the Turk- 
ish Vizier, a faction of Hungarian nobles set up a rival candidate, 
Michael Apafi. Kemeni was defeated and slain in the battle 
of Nagy Szollos, fought against a Turkish force in 1662. Apafi 
seized on the government, cancelled all the measures adopted by 
Kemeni, and in an assembly of the States outlawed the ad- 
herents of Austria. He failed, however, in all his attempts upon 
the places occupied by German garrisons, and the presence of a 
so-called auxiliary Turkish force was a scourge rather than a 
protection to the exhausted country. In 1663 Apafi was com- 
pelled to lead his forces in the train of the Vizier Achmed 
Kinperli, son of Mohammed, who was marching upon Hungary 
with the intention and expectation of annihilating the power of 
Austria. The advance of the Turks was so rapid and unimpeded 
that Vienna once more trembled at the prospect of a siege. The 
measures for defence, of destruction, and repair were, as usual in 
the moment of danger, commenced in haste, and prosecuted with 
more confusion than real despatch. 

The progress of the Turks was favoured by disputes between 
the civil and military authorities of Austria, and the Vizier was 
thus allowed, without opposition, to secure the open country of 
Transylvania, and to reduce the important fortress of Neuhaiisel. 
After these successes he marched with his main army on Eaab, 
with the project of exciting alarm for the safety of Styria, and then 
of suddenly flinging himself upon Vienna. It was, however, the 
good fortune of the Emperor Leopold to possess at this period 
the services of the only great commander of the moment, Ray- 
mond, Count of ]\Lontecuculi, as general of his forces in Hun- 
gary. On the 1st of August, 1669, this leader overthrew the 
Turks, in numbers fourfold greater than his own, with the loss 
of 17,000 men and all their artillery, in the memorable battle 
of St. Gothard. The armistice of Basvar followed close upon 
this victory. Twenty years were specified for its duration, but 
the civil and religious troubles of Hungary, and the severities 
by which Leopold sought to suppress them, led to its earlier in- 
fraction. 

F 2 



68 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, chap. iv. 



CHAPTER IV. 

MoNTECUCULi had derived but little assistance in his campaigns 
from the good will or aid of the Hungarians. Their dis- 
affection led to the adoption by the Austrian Government of 
a course of measures at variance with the laws of the reahn, and 
as impolitic as they were illegal, their main objects being to 
Germanize the nation, and to extirpate the Protestant heresy. 
The excesses of the German troops were such as to make the 
Hungarians, especially the Protestants, feel that they would 
rather gain than lose by the restoration of Mahometan rule. The 
proselytizing activity of the Jesuits was specially irritating to 
the non -Catholics, but the discontent was so general, that when 
the natural consequences broke out in the shape of an extensive 
and dangerous conspiracy, nearly all its leaders were dignitaries 
of the realm, and zealous Roman Catholics. The Emperor, 
whose natural disposition was mild and humane, was goaded to 
severity by the falsehoods and exaggerations of his advisers. 
The Hungarians, for instance, were accused of having poisoned 
the well of the citadel of Vienna. It was found, on examination, 
to have been tainted by the dead bodies of dogs and cats. The 
French ambassador, Grantonville, was exciting the Emperor to 
measures for the extirpation of heresy, and the destruction of the 
Hungarian constitution and nationality, while, at the same time, 
he was holding secret communication with the heads of the Hun- 
garian nobility — Counts Nadasky, Zriny, and Rakoczy, and en- 
couraging their reunion. At the head of the malcontents were 
the brave Palatine Francis Wesseleny, and Nicholas Zriny, a 
great grandson of the defender of Szygeth. At a meeting at 
Neusohl it was agreed to apply for Turkish assistance. The de- 
signs, however, of this formidable league were thvvarted by the 
untimely deaths of the two above-mentioned leaders. Zriny 
perished by a wound from the tusk of a wild boar, and Wesse- 
leny was carried off in the prime of life by a sudden fever. 

The ranks of the conspirators could furnish no man worthy, 



CHAP. IV.] BY THE TURKS. 69 

from talent and influence, to replace the loss so unexpectedly 
incurred at this critical juncture ; and the enterprise, falling 
into inferior hands, was commenced without plan and prosecuted 
without energy. The young Prince Eakoczy, and Peter Zriny, 
brother to the deceased, were the inefficient substitutes elected 
for its guidance. The latter had gained over to the cause his 
brother-in-law Francis Frangipani, a young and ardent man, 
incited by motives of revenge for an injury received from a 
German officer. The governor also of Styria, Count Tettenbach, 
a man related by marriage with the Hungarian leaders of the 
conspiracy, joined its ranks. He undertook to arm his peasants 
and foresters to the number of some thousands, to impart all 
official intelligence which should reach him, as governor, to the 
party, and to put them in possession of the town and citadel of 
Gratz. Frangipani undertook to provide a naval force in the 
Adriatic, and to gain over the Uskok and Greek population of 
Croatia. The chief meetings of the parties took place at the 
castle of Pottendorf, on the Hungarian frontier, a residence of 
the Count Nadasky, in a summer-house, the roof of which was 
adorned with a rose in stucco, from which the common expression 
'' sub rosa " derives its origin. The moment of execution for 
the designs of the conspirators was near at hand, when the danger, 
of incalculable magnitude to the Austrian government, was averted 
by an accidental disclosure. Tettenbach, too confident of success, 
had thrown into prison for some petty theft a servant initiated 
into the plot. This man, in the accidental absence of the Count, 
was submitted, in the usual course of law, to the torture, and to 
save his life confessed all he knew. The officers who adminis- 
tered the province in the absence of Tettenbach lost no time in 
forwarding the weighty intelligence to Vienna. Tettenbach on 
his return to Gratz was arrested. His papers contained ample 
evidence of his designs, which was confirmed by the discovery of 
arms for 6000 men in the cellars of his residence. The imperial 
minister. Prince Lobkowitz, oflPered a generous forgiveness to 
Zriny, bat sent a force to occupy his residence of Czakathurn. 
Zriny betrayed a fatal vacillation of purpose, observing in the 
first instance and afterwards violating the conditions of his 
pardon. He was finally, together with Frangipani, arrested, 
and confined at Czakathurn. Effecting their escape, they con« 



70 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. iv. 

ceived the project of presenting themselves and offering their 
submission at Vienna. Their project was betrayed to the 
Emperor by a friend named Keri, with whom they had taken 
refuge. He was instructed to encourage them to persevere in 
their design, but should they depart from it, and proceed to join 
Rakoczy, to arrest them. Keri preferred, for the purpose of 
magnifying his own services, to act at once on the latter part of 
the instruction. He arrested and conveyed them to Neustadt. 
Rakoczy, who had taken as yet no open measures, fled to his 
mother, who by her influence with the Jesuits procured his 
pardon. Charles Duke of Lorraine besieged the fortress Murany, 
occupied by the widow of Wesseleny, Maria Szetsi. She sur- 
rendered it without resistance, and died some years after, a 
prisoner at Vienna. The papers found at Murany compromised 
many leading men, and especially Nadasky, the Judex Curiae of 
Hungary, who bore the name of the Hungarian Croesus, coin to 
the amount of five millions being found in his treasury at Potten- 
dorf. He also was conveyed a prisoner to Vienna. Of the re- 
maining conspirators Stephen Tekeli was the most formidable. 
He died during the siege of his fortress of Arva by the impe- 
rialists. His daughters were dragged to prison at Vienna ; but 
his son Emerich, afterwards so famous, escaped to Transylvania, 
and, joining the Turks, became an active adviser and promoter of 
every design of that power hostile to Austria. An extraordinary 
commission was instituted at Vienna for the trial of the accused. 
Its acts were submitted to the Imperial Chamber at Spire, and 
to the universities of Ingoldstadt, Tubingen, and Leipzick, and 
these learned and merciless bodies unanimously condemned the 
prisoners to suffer all the refinements of cruelty which the prac- 
tice of the age assigned to the crime of treason in the highest 
degree. The Imperial Privy Council advised the loss of the 
right hand and beheading, which the Emperor mitigated to 
simple beheading, accompanied by degradation from the rank 
of noble and confiscation of property. The ceremony of the 
degradation of Nadasky took place with the accustomed form of 
words, " No longer Count Nadasky, but — thou traitor." He was 
then brought to the town-house by the Captain of the city guard 
in a close carriage. The Pope, Clement X., had interceded for 
his life and that of Zriny, but in vain. On the 30th of April, 



CHAP. IV.] BY THE TURKS. 



1674, at an early hour, the gates of the city were closed ; the 
Burgher guard under arms ; chains drawn across the streets ; the 
principal public places occupied by regular troops, foot and 
horse. In the Burgher hall, near the Register office, the scaf- 
folding hung with red was prepared, and the executioner, John 
Moser, in attendance, the black staff in his right hand, the sword 
in his left. The spectators sat round, all dressed in black. A 
Turkish Chiaus or officer of the Sultan's guard was present in a 
private tribune. Nadasky's head fell at one blow. The body 
was laid on a bier and exhibited till evening in the court of the 
town-house. It was then conveyed to the Augustines, and sub- 
sequently to the convent founded by the victim at Lockenhaus, 
in Hungary, where it is said to remain to this day uncorrupted. 
The sword and chair used in the execution are now in the 
Burgher arsenal. On the same day Frangipani and Zriny were 
also executed. Tettenbach's fate was deferred till December, 
when he also was beheaded at Gratz. 



72 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. v. 



CHAPTER V. 



1672 to 1680. 



The suppression of the dangerous conspiracy above described 
— however on many grounds we may sympathise with its authors 
— can hardly be considered in itself other than as an event 
favourable to the interests of Christian Europe. Unfortunately, 
however, the Austrian Government, not satisfied with the severity 
exercised on the leading conspirators, wreaked its impolitic and 
unjustifiable revenge upon the kingdom of Hungary at large. 
It was treated as a conquered country. The Protestant churches 
were closed ; the preachers who declined to subscribe to condi- 
tions incompatible with the exercise of their functions were 
arrested, banished, and in some instances condemned to the 
galleys. Resistance and civil war ensued, more fertile in atro- 
cities even than war with the Turk. The adherents of either 
party, as usual in cases of intestine strife, adopted popular de- 
signations long remembered for the misfortunes with which they 
were associated. The national partisans were called Kuruzzen, 
probably a corruption of Kreuzer, or cross-bearer; and the 
German lanzknecht was modified into the term Labanz. Each 
impaled, or flayed, or roasted the other on every opportunity. 
The Kuruzzen not unfrequently passed the Austrian frontier, 
reviving, wherever they appeared, recollections of the atrocities 
of the Sackman. The name to this day is coupled with that of 
the Turks in Lower Austria. Then, as at subsequent periods, 
the insurgents received aid and encouragement from France, and 
in 1679 they were even joined by a force levied in Poland, and 
officered by Frenchmen. The young Tekeli also came forward 
to wreak his vengeance upon Austria. He defeated the Im- 
perialists in several encounters, and even led his forces, joined 
by hordes of Tartar cavalry, to the walls of Neustadt, over the 
March field, and far into Moravia. A pestilence which broke 



CHAP, v.] BY THE TURKS. 73 

out in this year could hardly persuade man to resign to the 
powers of nature the task of decimating his species ; and it was 
not till the mortality of disease had reached an awful pitch that 
the spirit of mutual destruction came to a pause. In 1681 a 
diet was convened at GEdenburg with views of reconciliation, 
and attended by the Emperor in person. A palatine was elected, 
old privileges and institutions, the power of the Ban, and the 
frontier militia were revived, the licence of arbitrary taxation 
restrained, a general amnesty conceded, and the laws of the 
empire re-established, under which religious freedom was to be 
enjoyed by the professors of the Helvetic or Augsburg forms of 
Protestantism. The disruption, however, had gone too far to 
allow of a speedy and solid re-union of parties. The spirit of 
ambition and revenge in the bosom of Tekeli was not to be 
appeased even by the concession of his marriage with the widow 
of Rakoczy, which conveyed into his hands the important for- 
tress of Munkacs. The deputies of the Austrian Government 
also betrayed unfortunate and unreasonable indications of a 
lurking tendency to revengeful measures. The Hungarians, on 
the other hand, considered merely as their due the concessions 
obtained from the Emperor. At last the parties agreed so 
far as to determine upon sending an embassy to Constanti- 
nople, with the purpose of obtaining a prolongation of the 
twenty years' truce, which was about to expire. Count Al- 
bert Caprara was the envoy selected. He left Vienna in 
February, 1682, with a large suite and rich presents, and 
instructions to spare no pains for the avoidance of a Turkish 
war. The utter fruitlessness of his mission was apparent to 
him from the date of his arrival at Constantinople. He found 
the war party in that city, with the Yizier Kara Mustapha 
at its head, eager to avail themselves of the distractions of Hun- 
gary, which Tekeli 's emissaries could hardly exaggerate in their 
reports. Troops were sent before his face to the assistance of 
the rebels, and the conditions of peace demanded by the Porte 
were such as to extinguish all hope of an accommodation. An 
annual tribute of 50,000 dollars was demanded in the first in- 
stance, the surrender of the territory between the Theiss and 
the Waag to the Turks, and of several places of strength to 
Tekeli. The latter was also to be recognized as Prince of Upper 



74 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. v. 

Hungar5% and of equal rank with the Prince of Transylvania. 
Finally^ the restitution of all the confiscated estates of the con- 
spirators was insisted upon. Troops poured in from Asia and 
Egypt to support these pretensions, and swell the European 
forces collecting under the eye of the ambassador; and the 
demands of the Turks rose with the tidings they now received of 
the progress of the arms of Tekeli, till at last they claimed the 
fortresses of Raab, Komorn, and Szathmar, and an indemnifica- 
tion for their war expenses of six million dollars. The ambas- 
sador saw the futility of further attempts at negotiation. His 
firm but temperate reply to the Vizier Kara Mustapha procured 
him the treatment of a prisoner of state. His couriers were 
detained, and he was reduced to despatch the tidings of Turkish 
insolence and preparation by secret messengers, and by the way 
of Venice to Vienna. He himself was compelled to accompany 
the Turkish army of invasion on its march. There was but too 
much ground for the Turkish confidence. The undefended con- 
dition of the Austrian frontier, the general inadequacy of the 
military preparations of that power, were known and appreciated 
at Constantinople; but it also happened that three Arabian 
astrologers had predicted the reduction of Vienna, the fall of the 
West Romish Empire, and moreover the further advance of the 
armies of the faitiiful to Rome and to the Rhine. Even without 
respect to such prophecies as these, the moment was propitious 
for reducing to entire subjection the long disputed kingdom of 
Hungary ; and the influence of Kara Mustapha, eager for war, 
prevailed against the serious opposition of the Ulema, of the 
mother Sultana, Valide, and even against the inclination of the 
unvvarlike Sultan Mohammed himself. The Vizier, while he 
dazzled the latter with splendid visions of ulterior conquest, was 
influenced in secret by ambition on his own account. He destined 
for himself the plunder of Vienna, and he considered his own ad- 
vancement to the throne of Hungary, at least as a tributary to 
the Porte, a reasonable and attainable reward for his anticipated 
success as leader of the army of the faithful. His influence 
with the Sultan, exerted to the utmost, gained the ascendancy 
over that of the Sultana. He contrived to win over the chief of 
his spiritual opponents. The soldiery, including that formidable 
body the Janissaries, were naturally of the faction which promised 



CHAP, v.] BY THE TUEKS. 



them plunder and blood. The strong party which appealed by- 
various methods against the injustice of the war was silenced by 
harsh measures ; and by the autumn of 1 682 the army was in 
motion under the immediate command of the Vizier, and accom- 
panied by the Mufti and the principal dignitaries of the empire. 
It was halted, and encamped for the winter, at Adrianople, to 
refresh the contingents which had marched from the more distant 
Asiatic provinces, and to prepare for effective operations in the 
spring. Here also it was joined by the Sultan, the pomp and 
expenditure of whose progress, and especially the hundred car- 
riages devoted to the female portion of his retinue, moved the 
soldiery to rough comparisons with the practice of Murad IV., 
who took the field with one wife and two pages. The army had 
to contend with those autumnal rains which more than once had 
impeded under Soliman the progress of similar expeditions. 
The superstition of the people interpreted these incidents of 
climate into omens of failure ; but the Vizier, though his own 
tent was swept away by an inundation which, on the first night 
after the troops were halted, ravaged the camp, was unshaken in 
his purpose, and the horse-tails continued planted before the 
royal residence in the direction of Hungary. The tedium of 
winter quarters was relieved by a royal chase, for which 30,000 
peasants were collected to drive the game. The result, if the 
beaters themselves are not reckoned, was small — one wild boar, 
six roes, and thirty hares — but a much larger number of the 
beaters perished from exhaustion. Where the Sultan met with 
their corpses he observed that they had probably spoken ill of 
him, and had met with their reward — a safe and satisfactory 
assumption. In the following spring, while the army was mus- 
tered in presence of the Sultan, a still more violent storm oc- 
curred, which among other exploits of its fury carried off the 
turban from the head of the sovereign. Undeterred by this 
omen, the Sultan accompanied the march of his army as far as 
Belgrade, where on the 12th May he received the ambassadors 
of Tekeli. Here, however, he also received intelligence of an 
event which, could his Arabian soothsayers have predicted its 
results, might still have made him pause in the prosecution of 
his purpose. This was no less than the signature of an alliance 
between the Emperor and John Sobieski, king of Poland. On the 



76 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. v. 

following day he commit fed the green standard of the Prophet, 
and with it the chief command, to the Yizier, who undertook the 
further conduct of the campaign uncontrolled by the presence of 
a master who had not the taste of his earlier ancestors for the 
fatigues of the march or the dangers of the field. The strength 
of the regular force with which he took the field is known with 
accuracy from the muster-roll which was found in his tent in the 
lines at Vienna. We thus find the total strength of the regular 
troops amounting to 275,000 men. The attendants on baggage, 
commissariat, camels, horses, &c., were never numbered, and 
would be difficult to calculate. If we add the force which after- 
wards joined the Turks under Tekeli, including 12,000 Tartars, 
13,000 Janissaries, and 2000 Spahis, and amounting in all to 
60,000 fighting men, we cannot estimate the numbers which 
poured into Hungary at less than 400,000. The approach of 
the Turkish army, following upon his own successes, excited the 
pride of Tekeli to the utmost. He assumed the title of Duke of 
Hungary, and threatened with banishment and even with death 
all who should fail to appear at a Diet which he summoned to 
assemble at Kaschau. He struck coins, now become rare, with 
his own likeness, and the legend, '' Emericus Comes Tekly iu 
Kaesmarki, Dux Ungarise," and on the obverse a naked sword 
with the words '' Pro Deo et Patria.'* Several French officers 
and engineers served in his forces, in pursuance of the unworthy 
policy of Louis XIV., whose jealousy of the House of Hapsburg 
rejected no means, however disgraceful, and no ally, however 
discreditable; and overlooked all the evil consequences to 
Christendom of the success of the schemes he thus supported. 
The last proposals for peace conveyed from the Austrian court 
to Tekeli, by the Baron Sapomara, were haughtily rejected. 
At Essek, where he was received with royal honours by the 
Vizier, he accepted at the hands of the latter his investiture as 
Prince of the kingdom of Hungary, which he acknowledged 
subject to the Porte. With all his pomp, and after all his ex- 
ploits, he was but what J. Zapolya had been before him, a scourge 
iu the hands of Providence to a miserable country, a tool and 
catspaw to the Sultan and the Sultan's slaves. 



CHAP. VI.J BY THE TURKS. 



CHAPTER VI. 

1682 to 1683. 

On the 8tli December, 1682, the servants of Count Caprara had 
reached Vienna with tidings of the enormous preparations of the 
Turks. The reports from Hungary were also unfavourable, and 
the necessity for immediate measures of defence was palpable as 
it was urgent. The first requisite, money, w^as sought for in an 
impost of a hundredth part of the means of the higher and lower 
nobility, and of the clergy, usually exempt from such burthens, 
but considered liable in the case of invasion by the enemy of 
Christendom. It was, however, to Poland that Austria now 
looked with the deepest anxiety, though it must have been with 
profound reluctance, and at first with little expectation of success, 
that the Emperor could turn to that quarter for assistance. The 
fate of Hungary at the least, and of the Austrian capital, hung, 
however, on the success of Austrian diplomacy with the great 
soldier, John Sobieski, who now filled the throne of Poland, His 
neutrality alone would have lefl both to a certain fate, and even 
that neutrality was hardly to be depended upon ; for at a recent 
period French officers in the service of Tekeli had been allowed 
to commence the levy of a force in Poland for the support of that 
dangerous ally of the Turks. Mohacs had been lost by the 
defection of Zapolya. John Sobieski as a leader was as much 
superior to Zapolya as the 20,000 Sarmatian horse which he and 
he alone could bring into the field were superior to Zapolya's 
Transylvanian cavalry. A long course of slights received and 
interests thwarted had alienated him from the throne of Austria, 
and cemented the connexion which his education, his marriage, 
and his political interests had hitherto maintained with France. 
To remove these obstacles it was necessary in the first instance 
for the hereditary sovereign of the House of Hapsburg to con- 
cede to the Elective King of Poland the title of Majesty. This 



78 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap, vi 

was an act of derogation which nothing but hard necessity could 
have wrung from a sovereign so faithful to the traditions of 
Austrian etiquette as Leopold. It was easier to hold out hopes, 
which he never intended to realise, of more substantial advan- 
tages, of a marriage between Prince James, the heir of Sobieski, 
and an Austrian Archduchess, and of the establishment of them- 
selves and their descendants on an hereditary throne. The de- 
vices, however, of diplomacy would probably have been unavail- 
ing to overthrow the influence of France, which was unceasingly 
exerted against that of Vienna, but for an accident of the time. 

" Porta salutis 
Qua minime reris Graia pandetur ab urbe." 

The intrigues of the French court were defeated by those of a 
Frenchwoman. Sobieski had espoused, in 1665, ten years before 
his accession to the tlirone, Marie Casimire de la Grange, 
daughter of Henri de la Grange, Marquis d'Arquien. She had 
early acquired an influence over her husband, which she exerted 
in a manner almost uniformly detrimental to his peace, his in- 
terests, and those of his kingdom; and the wife of 41 continued 
now to exercise over the consort of 53 the dangerous fascination 
of a mistress. It pleased that Providence, which so frequently 
vi^orks out its greatest designs by contemptible instruments, to 
di.<appoint this woman in an intrigue which she had set on foot 
at Versailles for the elevation of her father to a French duke- 
dom. On her announcement of an intended journey to France, 
question had been raised in this quarter also as to that title of 
Majesty which has been mentioned as affecting her husband's rela- 
tions with Austria. These, and such as these, were the in- 
fluences which are said at this critical moment to have caused 
the scale to descend in favour of Austria, to have outweighed 
the uxorious Sobieski's recollections of his education in France, 
to have saved Vienna and rescued Hungary from Mahometan 
rule. That other and sounder considerations had not their in- 
fluence upon Sobieski's decision, it would be preposterous to 
suppose. Sincere and earnest to the verge of bigotry in his 
attachment to the Romish form of Christianity, he could not 
look with indifference to the probable success of the Turkish 
arms in Hunoary and Austria. He had received, however^ 
assurances from Turkey that in the event of his continued neu- 



CHAP. VI.] BY THE TURKS. 79 

trality the Polish frontier should be kept free from invasion. 
To that neutrality he was in strictness bound by the fidelity with 
which the Ottoman Porte had observed the engagements of her 
last pacification with Poland — a fidelity which all historians agree 
has usually characterized the proceedings of the Porte, and 
which stands out in strong and frequent contrast with the prac- 
tice of Christian States. Kelying on the faith of treaties, Mo- 
hammed IV. had left the important fortress of Kaminiec and the 
frontier of Podolia unguarded ; and if Sobieski had sought for an 
excuse to avoid alliance with Austria, he might have found it 
in the obligations of the Treaty of Zurawno, which had been 
so faithfully observed by the Turks. Pome, however, was at 
hand to dispense with these obligations towards the kifidel. 
Advisers meanwhile were not wanting to suggest that by con- 
tinuing awhile a spectator of a struggle which must produce 
exhaustion on either side, and by striking in at the proper 
time and in the proper quarter, Sobieski might best find oc- 
casion to recover from the Turk the much coveted fortress 
of Kaminiec. It was under such circumstances that the 
good genius of Christendom stepped in in the disguise of an 
intriguing Frenchwoman. Influenced for once in a right and 
sound direction by his wife, and inspired by the memories of 
former victories, among others of that great battle of Choczim, 
in which he had seen the turbans floating thick as autumnal 
leaves on the Dniester, he flung his powerful frame into the 
saddle and his great soul into the cause, and gladly forgot, in the 
congenial occupation of collecting and recruiting his reduced and 
scattered army, the perpetual intrigues of his court and house- 
hold. By the treaty now concluded the two sovereigns con- 
tracted a mutual obligation to assist each other against the Turk, 
bringing into the field respectively 60,000 and 40,000 men. The 
Emperor conceded a questionable claim to the salt-mines of 
Wieliezka, and the more important point of a pretension to the 
eventual succession to the crown of Poland in favour of his son. 
He was well advised to exact that the treaty should be ratified by 
the solemn sanction of an oath administered by a Cardinal 
Legate. There is no doubt that the sense entertained by 
Sobieski of the obligation of this oath had a serious influence on 
his subsequent conduct. By a precaution to which Pascal, 



80 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. vi. 

had he been alive, might have referred as illustrative of the 
practices which spring from the school of Loyola, the two parties 
to this oath bound themselves not to resort to the Pope for any 
dispensation from its observance. How far it was logical and 
consistent thus to limit the Pope's power, and confine its valid 
operation to one dispensation, it is not for Protestants to decide. 
The Abbe Coyer quotes this as a secret article. Possibly at the 
moment the parties were ashamed of it ; but it is extant in the 
copy of the treaty printed in Dumont's Corps Universel Diplo^ 
matique, 1731. It was agreed that, should either sovereign 
take the field in person, the chief command should be vested in 
him. This article was doubtless intended to effect the purpose, 
which it accomplished, of turning to practical account the 
acknowledged military talents of Sobieski, and the terror 
which his name excited among the Turks. No provision 
is made in the treaty for the contingency of the appear- 
ance of both sovereigns in the field. Leopold was no soldier ; 
and though he at one time threatened a visit to the army, from 
which he was judiciously dissuaded by his confessor, it is not pro- 
bable that he ever contemplated an appearance on the field of 
battle. An anecdote however is current that, after the great 
success before Vienna, he reproached his minister, Sinzendorf, for 
having advised his absence from the field, with so much bitter- 
ness, that the latter died of the infliction. If this had been 
believed at the time, it is not probable that Sobieski would have 
failed to report so piquant an anecdote in his correspondence 
with his wife. 

In Poland as well as in Austria time was required to bring 
into the field the forces promised on all . hands ; and in the mean 
time the Austrian frontier was uncovered, for the Imperial 
army under command of the brave and experienced Duke Charles 
of Lorraine, stationed in the neighbourhood of Presburg, scarcely 
amounted to 33,000 men. From this scanty force garrisons 
were to be drawn for Baab, Komorn, Leopoldstadt, and Pres- 
burg — two flying corps to be furnished against the first advance 
of the enemy on the Raab and the Mur, and with the overplus 
the Austrian monarchy was to be upheld till the promised 
succours should appear. Austria was fortunate in the leader upon 
whom these difficult and complicated duties devolved. Trained to 



CHAP. VI.] BY THE TURKS. 81 

arms against the Turks under Montecnculi, and against Conde 
under William of Nassau, Charles Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, 
had matured his military talents, in independent command, 
against the armies of France^ through several scientific cam- 
paigns on the Rhine and in Flanders. He was now in a situa- 
tion which required him to call forth all the resources acquired 
in such schools as these, and which demanded a cautious and 
patient application of strategical and tactical lore to retrieve the 
disadvantages of vast disparity of numbers and great local diffi- 
culties of position. To make any serious stand against the first 
rush of the invaders with the small force at his command was 
impossible, and his first duty was to save from destruction an 
army outflanked and nearly surrounded, upon the extrication of 
which the ultimate preservation of the capital depended. It was 
manifest, under these circumstances, that Vienna must again 
bide the brunt of the storm. The shape of the city was nearly 
what it had been in 1529, and what it still continues, but the de- 
fences had been improved under Ferdinand III. and Leopold L 
The entire population of the neighbouring country were now 
summoned by Imperial edict to labour on the outworks, and to 
fell trees for palisades. On the fortifications themselves 3000 
labourers were daily employed, and the families in the suburbs 
were called upon to furnish a man from each house for two 
months for the same object. Elevated spots within range of the 
walls, and the nearer houses, as in 1529, were levelled, and 
upwards of 30,000 palisades of solid oak prepared and disposed. 
On the 20 rh March the labourers mustered from all sides, and 
the work of fortification went on from that date with regularity, 
but slowly, from the insufficient supply of tools and materials. 
By another edict every citizen was summoned under heavy 
penalties to furnish himself with provisions, for a year's consump- 
tion, within the space of a month. Those clearly unable to do so 
Mere directed to quit the city. 

While these measures were in progress hostilities had com- 
menced in Upper Hungary. The Pacha of Neuhaiisel received 
orders under pain of the bowstring to make himself master of 
the Schiitt island of the Danube. He attempted in the middle 
of February to pass the river for this purpose on the ice, but it 
broke, and he was compelled to retire with a loss of 90 men, 

G 



82 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. vi. 

On the 8th of March he repeated the attempt with 2000 men, 
but after a partial success, was driven back into the fortress with 
loss by the Imperialist, Colonel Castelli. Other places, how- 
ever, of small note fell into the hands of the Turks, and the tide 
of war rolled steadily on towards Vienna. On the 6th of May 
the Emperor reviewed the army near Kitsee, but it had as yet 
received no material accession to its strength. Hungary, although 
at a Diet held in Oedenburg it had promised a levy en masse, 
had as yet scarcely furnished 3000 men, under the Palatine 
Esterhazy, a number insufficient to protect the shores of the 
Raab and the Danube from the predatory excursions of the 
Turkish garrison of Pesth. The Emperor, accompanied by such 
of the princes of the empire as were present, inspected the armv, 
distributed 500,000 florins among the troops, and caused the 
Pope's indulgence to be read to them by the Primate of Hun- 
gary, the Archbishop of Gran. In a council of war, in which 
it is probable the Lorraine was overruled by the influence of the 
court, it was determined to adopt the course, difficult if not im- 
possible, of taking the initiative of hostilities in Hungary, on the 
reliance that the main army of the Turks could not be in pre- 
sence before July, and in the hope of encouraging the troops by 
some preliminary success. It was first proposed to lay siege to 
Gran ; but as it was found impossible to close the passage of its 
supplies by the Danube, and 20,000 men were moving from 
Pesth to its relief, this enterprise was abandoned, and the army 
encamped on the 3rd of June before Neuhaiisel. The Pacha 
made answer to a summons that the Imperialists should learn to 
what kind of men the Sultan confided his fortresses, and he was 
as good as his word. The Imperialists -had carried the suburbs 
and attacked the body of the place when they were driven back 
by a successful sally with the loss of two young volunteers of 
distinction, the Counts Taxis and Kazianer. The report also 
reached them of the approach of the Turkish main army, and of 
the wide-spread irruption of its forerunners, the Tartar cavalry, 
which threatened their line of retreat. On the 10th June this 
siege without an object was raised, and the army withdrew along 
the Danube, but not without loss from sallies of the enemy. 
Garrisons were hastily flung into Raab, Komorn, and Leopold- 
stadt, sufficient for their defence should the enemy leave them 



CHAP. VI.] BY THE TURKS. 83 

in his rear. The army, reduced by this draft on its numbers to 
about 12,000 foot and 11,000 horse, took up the best position it 
could find between the Raab and Eaduitz, and there awaited the 
approach of the enemy. 



g2 



84 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. vii. 



CHAPTER VII. 

From June 30 to July 13, 1683. 

The Vizier during the above transactions had led the main army 
by way of Belgrade as far as Essek, where, as before related, 
his meeting with Tekeli took place. In the discussions of a 
council of war held at this place, several Pachas and Tekeli 
himself declared their opinions strongly against undertaking a 
siege of Vienna, at least in the current year. They recom- 
mended, not without substantial military grounds, the previous 
reduction of the strong places in Hungary still held by the Im- 
perialists, and the establishment of a base for further operations 
in the complete subjugation of that kingdom. The Vizier, ob- 
stinate in his own view, and irritated by the strength of the 
opposition, concealed his determination, and, appearing to acqui- 
esce in the advice of Tekeli, gave orders for an advance upon 
Raab, which was invested and summoned on the 30th of June. 
The Governor returned a reply to the summons by which, whether 
by collusion or accident, he played into the hands of the Vizier. 
It stated the impossibility of a present surrender : the Vizier 
Would do well to pursue his march on Vienna: after the fall of 
that city liaab should be surrendered without resistance. In a 
council of w'ar the aged Ibrahim Pacha, Governor of Pesth, 
strongly advocated the reduction of Eaab and the other fortresses 
of Hungary. A king, he said, once placed a heap of gold on 
the middle of a carpet, and offered it to any one who could take 
it up without treading on the carpet. A wise man rolled up the 
carpet from the corner, and thus obtained possession of the gold. 
Hungary was the carpet, and if rolled up in like manner the gold 
might be reached in the autumn, or at latest in the following 
spring. This apologue only drew down the insolent wrath of 
the Vizier upon the venerable councillor, and Raab was left 
unmolested in the rear of the advancing army, w^hich the Tartar 



CHAP. VII.] BY THE TURKS. S5 

hordes preceded in all directions. With the exception of a few 
places, which, surrendering themselves to Te^eli, were spared 
from destruction, the old system of havoc was everywhere pur- 
sued. The works of man were everywhere destroyed, and the 
population slaughtered, or dragged into captivity. The Imperial 
army soon beheld the flames of burning villages rising in the 
rear of its position. Not a moment was to be lost in effiecting 
its retreat : the infantry had scarcely time to fling itself into the 
Schiitt island, and thence, gaining the left bank, to pursue its 
retreat over the March field to Vienna. The cavalry, under the 
immediate command of the Duke of Lorraine, retired by Alten- 
burg and Kitsee. Its advanced guard was, on the 7th of July, 
surprised near Petronel by an attack of 15,000 Tartars, and the 
whole body was thrown into a confusion which, but for the pre- 
sence and exertions of its commander, might have been fatal. 
He was ably seconded by the Margrave Louis of Baden, the 
Duke of Sachsen Lauenberg, and others, and, order once re- 
stored, the enemy was repulsed without difficulty. About 200 
men fell on the side of the Turks ; the Austrians lost only sixty, 
but among them were a young prince of Aremberg and Louis of 
Savoy, elder brother of the future conqueror of the Turks, 
Eugene. The first fell by the Turkish sabre ; the latter was 
crushed beneath his horse. The baggage of the Dukes of Sachsen 
Lauenberg and Croy, and of General Caprara, containing their 
plate, with which it was the fashion of the day for generals to 
encumber themselves, fell into the hands of the Tartars. The 
tidings of this action produced their immediate eflPects on either 
party. The Vizier, on the day after receiving them, crossed the 
Raab. He took care to disseminate through his ranks exagger- 
ated reports of the discomfiture and confusion of the Imperialists, 
and of the unprovided condition of Vienna ; and while he stimu- 
lated the Janissaries by the prospect of an easy triumph and 
boundless plunder, he silenced the opposition of the timid and 
the wise by the promulgation of the Sultan's Hatti Scheriff", which 
invested him with sole and unlimited power of command. Some 
time, however, had been lost in deliberation, and in going- 
through the formality of the investment of Raab, and these mo- 
ments were precious to the defenders of Vienna. The usual 
tendency to exaggerate evil tidings had strongly displayed itself 



86 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. vii. 



in that city. The skirmish of Petronel had been magnified into 
the total defeat and hasty flight of the Imperial army. Those 
who had been the first to leave the field, and therefore knew 
least of the actual result, were the authors of this intelligence ; 
and it derived dismal probability from the flames which reddened 
the nightly horizon in many directions and at no great distance. 
The villages, for instance, of Schwechat and Fischamend gave this 
evidence of the presence of the Turkish horse. The Emperor 
Leopold was not one of those rare instances of military talent on 
the throne which appear once perhaps in a century in the shape 
of Gustavus Adolphus, John Sobieski, or Charles XII. Such 
men by their presence would have made a capital impregnable. 
Leopold w^ould have been but an incumbrance during a siege ; 
and he adopted the wiser course of removing himself and his 
court to a sufficient distance from the scene of danger. Before, 
however, he had decided on this step, events had left him little 
time to lose ; and it had become matter of serious deliberation 
which road he should take to avoid the risk of falling into the 
hands of the Tartar cavalry. The direct road to Lintz was 
adjudged by his council no longer free from this danger, and it 
was determined that he should make his way thither by the 
left bank of the Danube. On the evening of the 7th, therefore, 
the long file of the Imperial carriages issuing from the Rothen- 
thurm gate crossed the Leopoldstadt island and the Tabor bridge, 
and reached that evening the village of Chor Neuburg, some 
fifteen miles from Vienna, which had been previously occupied 
by a small detachment of musketeers under an Irish officer, whose 
name, probably O'Haggerty, has been Germanized into Von 
Haffti. Thence he pursued his journey to Lintz, but not with- 
out serious risk. It is said that but for the prompt and able 
interference of the French envoy, the Marquis de Sepville, who 
caused a part of the bridge at Crems to be removed, the Emperor 
and his entire suite would have fallen into the hands of the 
Tartars. It would be a curious matter of inquiry how far this 
important service was approved of at Versailles. It is evident 
that the first route proposed would have consigned the head of 
the empire, his consort, far advanced in pregnancy, and the Em- 
press mother, to the hands of the Tartars. Even Lintz was con- 
sidered insecure ; and the Royal party continued its discreditable 



CHAP. VII.] BY THE TURKS. 87 

flight till it found refuge beyond the frontier of its own dominion 
in the Bavarian fortress of Passau, From nine in the evenino- 
till two of the following morning the carriages of the wealthier 
fugitives, who followed the example of the court, filed over the 
Tabor bridge, lighted on their route by the flames of the Carmel- 
ite convent on the Kahlenberg. They left the city in a state of 
well-grounded alarm and discontent bordering upon revolt. The 
public feeling was strongly evinced against the Jesuits, who were 
not unjustly accused of having instigated the naturally mild dis- 
position of the Emperor to courses which had alienated the 
affections of the Protestants, and driven them into the arms 
of an infidel enemy. The city also, thus left to itself, was at this 
moment nearly without a garrison. Besides the usual burgher 
guard, a mere police force, the regiment of Kaiserstein, about 
1000 strong, were the only troops within the walls. The 
palisades were not fixed, the bastions were unprovided with 
artillery or gabions. The number of those w^ho left the city on 
the 6th and 7th of July amounted to 60,000, of whom a large 
proportion, whose means of conveyance failed them on the way, 
and all those who took the road of Styria, fell into the hands of 
the enemy. The Turks are said to have used bloodhounds to 
hunt down those who fled to the woods. So large an emigra- 
tion reduced to a fearful extent the number of citizens capable 
of bearing arms. The courage, however, of this remnant 
was somewhat restored on the 8th by the appearance of 
the cavalry, who filed through the city with much military 
clangour and display, and encamped in the meadows near the 
Tabor. This substantial contradiction of the rumour previously 
circulated of the total destruction of the imperial army was well 
calculated to produce a reaction on the public mind ; but a still 
happier impression was made by the arrival on the same day of 
Ernest Rudiger, Count Stahremberg, another pupil of the Monte- 
cuculi school, to whom, on the score of his successful defence of 
Moravia against the incursions of Tekeli in 1681, the Emperor 
now confided the command and defence of the city. He lost no 
time in setting all hands to work on the fortifications ; but at first 
little more could be done than to complete the fixing of the pali- 
sades, for the scarcely credible fact is on record that the necessary 
works for the main defence of the city could not be prosecuted 



88 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. vii. 

for want of the common and essential tools. The annals of the 
city are silent as to the parties responsible for this monstrous 
neglect ; but it is certain that if the Turks had not lingered before 
Raab, or if by greater expedition on the march they had arrived 
before Vienna a few hours sooner than they did, that city must 
have fallen without a blow, and with all its treasures, into the 
hands of the destroyer. It was not till the following day after 
Stahremberg's arrival that, by the unwearied exertions of the 
Imperial Chancellor Benedict Geizer, the contents of the secret 
archives and the treasury were conveyed away by the Danube 
under circumstances of imminent peril. The population of all 
classes, the richest citizens, and even women and ecclesiastics, 
now laboured unremittingly at the fortifications. # The burgo- 
master, Yon Liebenberg, set the example, doing active service 
with a wheelbarrow. The wood stored for building or fuel 
without the walls was conveyed into the town ; every householder 
was enjoined to have water ready on his roof, and all persons 
whose usual employment would be in abeyance during the siege 
were armed and taken into the regular service of the state. They 
formed a body of 1 200. The most important works were con- 
ducted between the 7th and the 12th July, and towards the end 
of that period almost under the eye of the enemy, who on the 
10th had crossed the Austrian frontier at Hungarian Altenburg, 
destroying everything as he advanced. At Klosterneuburg a 
number of boats were collected for the construction of a floatinsr 
bridge there in case of necessity, and the arsenals v/ere well stored 
with ammunition brought by water from Crems. On the 12th 
the nearer vicinity of the enemy was evinced by the contracting 
circle of blazing villages. From the Hungarian frontier to the 
neighbourhood of the Kahlenberg every unfortified place bore 
lurid token of Turkish occupation — Baden, Modling, Ebenfurt, 
Inzersdorf, Pellendorf, Laxenburg, Laa. Neustadt alone held 
out by the strength of its walls and the gallantry of its inmates. 
Perch tolsdorf emulated this example in the first instance, but its 
ulterior fate demands separate and particular narration. 

The Tartar bands in the course of this day ventured as far as 
St. Marks, and to the present Theresianum. All that man can 
do to blast the results of human labour and defeat the powers of 
production inherent in a fruitful soil was performed by this tribe 



CHAP, vii.j BY THE TURKS. 89 

of human locusts. One spot alone was held sacred by them : 
this was the imperial villa at Sommering, occupying and nearly 
CO- extensive with the site of Soliman's tent at the former siege. 
From respect to his memory this building was spared and con- 
verted into a magazine. These scenes of desolation were not 
confined to Lower Austria. The marauders followed the course 
of the Danube into the Upper Province, and even in Bavaria and 
Suabia the terror of their rumoured approach was such that many 
of the inhabitants fled with their moveable effects to Switzerland 
and over the Rhine. On the 13th July, towards 8 a.m., several 
bodies of Turkish horse showed themselves on the Wienerberg, 
whence they spread themselves towards Schonbrunn, Hietzing, 
Ottakrin, Hernals, and Wahring as far as Dobling and Nussdorf. 
Towards 2 p.m. another numerous body showed itself from St. 
Marks, which took possession of the whole ground from the so- 
called Gatterholzel to the Hundsthurm. The first fire from the 
city was opened on these troops, which caused them to retire 
behind the enclosures of the numerous vineyards of this neigh- 
bourhood. At this, the last available moment, the commandant 
gave the order, which an hour's delay would have made impos- 
sible of execution, to set fire to the suburbs, the inhabitants of 
which had on the previous day removed their property into the 
city. The conflagration was general and effective for its purpose : 
many costly buildings, public as well as private, were its victims, 
and many valuable contents still remaining in them shared their 
fate. A high wind sprung up at the same time, and as much 
timber was still accumulated near the palisades and up to the 
walls of the city, it required all the exertions of the commandant 
and the city authorities to prevent the city itself from sharing 
the disaster which was intended for its preservation. 

Stahremberg has been by some blamed for postponing so long 
the destruction of the suburbs. Others would have been found 
to blame him if, while a hope or a possibility remained of an aban- 
donment of their undertaking by the Turks, he had given so many 
costly public edifices, so many abodes of luxury and comfort, so 
much wealth, to the flames. To the last moment that hope 
was probably entertained — that possibility might -reasonably be 
held to exist. The disputes in the Turkish council were no 
secret, and perhaps were exaggerated in the imperfect reports 



90 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap, vii 

which reached Vienna. The movement on Vienna might be an 
empty menace ; even if serious, it might be frustrated by a counter- 
advance of the forces of the Empire. If these or other possible 
contingencies had occurred, what complaints of ruined proprie- 
tors would have assailed him — what a stigma of useless barbarity 
would chroniclers have attached to the name since become so 
famous! The circumstances were very different in 1529. The 
suburban buildings of that day were of far less extent and value, 
but approached much nearer to the city ; and the necessity of 
their demolition was much more palpable, inasmuch as after the 
fall of Pesth the advance of such a leader as Soliman was a 
matter of far greater certainty than that of the Vizier in this 
instance ; the more so because in the former case there was no 
regular force whatever to oppose the invasion — in the present, an 
army of some strength, well disciplined, and ably commanded, 
was in the path of the invader. The ultimate event certainly 
justified the wary advice of the old Pacha of Pesth, but it was 
rather in the execution of his plan than in its conception that 
the Vizier ran now be held to have failed. If Vienna had fallen, 
we should have heard little of the rashness of the rapid and 
daring march by which so great a blow had been struck, and the 
operation would have been possibly considered as an anticipation 
of the system of Napoleon by a semi-barbarian but kindred 
genius. As such indeed it is now considered by some military 
critics. 



CHAP. VIII.] BY THE TURKS. 91 



CHAPTER YIII. % 

From the 13th to the 19th July. 

In the evening of the 13th, the infantry of the Imperial army 
destined for the garrison of Vienna marched into the city ; and 
now all the gates, even including that of the Rothenthurm, by 
which these troops had entered, were built up and barricaded. 
On the same day two summonses in the Latin language were 
thrown over the counterscarp. They remained unanswered. 
The following were the military arrangements for the defence : 
— Stahremberg's principal subordinates in command were the 
Generals Daun and Serini ; the Brigadiers Souches and SchefFen- 
berg ; the Marquis of Obizzi, commander of the city guard ; 
Colonels the Duke of Wirtemberg, the Baron von Beck ; Counts 
Dupigny and Heister — all men of experience and proved courage.* 
The affairs of the city were managed by a separate and secret 
college of Imperial Councillors of State, of which the President 
was Count Cappliers. The other members were Count Molart, 
Marshal of Austria ; the Baron von Belchamin ; Hartmann von 
Hiittendorf, and the Secretaries Haekl and Fux. Among those 
who volunteered their services in any capacity, the worthy Bishop 
of Neustadt, Leopold Count von Kollinitsch, demands special 
mention. The Bishop of Vienna, Emerich Sinellius, had accom- 
panied the Emperor to Passau, and had thus left the affairs of 
his see to be administered by one who by his discharge of 
spiritual functions, by his expenditure on works of charity, and 
by his attendance on the sick ai>d w^ounded, earned a reputation 
as sound and as honourable as could be obtained by others in the 
battery or the breach. Nor was his ministry confined to these 
sacred functions. He had served as a Knight of Malta in his 

* Sigbert Count -von Heister, one of the best soldiers of his day. At the 
beginning of the siege his hat was shot through by a Turkish arrow. Arrow 
and hat are preserved in the Ambros collection at Vienna. 



92 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. viii. 

youth against the Turks, and his military experience now became 
scarcely of less value than his spiritual labours. He was among 
the most active at the side of Stahremberg- ; was his companion 
daily at the posts of greatest danger, encouraging the combatants 
by his example, tending the wounded, and administering the 
rites of religion to the dying. The systematic arrangements for 
the extinction of fires, for the collection and distribution of 
provisions, and for the prevention of extortion during the siege, 
were all due to this remarkable man. In the crowded hospital, 
where the mien of death is most hideous, he was to be found dis- 
pensing hopes of heaven to those who had no longer hope on 
earth. Women, children, and old men, usually the burthens of 
a besieged place, were by him organized and disciplined for 
services which would have otherwise drawn oflf defenders from 
the walls. Through his exertions also a subscription was set on 
foot, which, backed by his own liberal contributions, and those 
of other leading men, such as Prince Ferdinand of Schwarzen- 
berg, who contributed 50,000 florins and 3000 eimers of wine, 
reached the sum of 600,000 florins. The example of this prelate 
was emulated by Maximilian, Count of Trautmansdorf ; Charles, 
Count of Fiinf kirchen ; Godfrey, Count of Salaburg ; Count 
Vignoncourt ; Matthew, Count of Colalto ; Frederick, Baron 
of Kielmansegg, who besides his services in action assisted the 
defence by the invention of a powder-mill, and of a hand- 
grenade. To the above names are to be added those of Zet- 
teritz, Riinnlingen and Rosstauscher. The garrison consisted 
of 13,000 regular troops from the regiments of Stahrem- 
berg (now of the Archduke Louis, No. 8) ; Mansfield (now 
Duke of Lucca, No. 24) ; Souches (now Archduke Rainer, 
No. II); Bock (now Grand Duke of Baden, No. 59) ; Scher- 
fenberg ; of the half regiments Pfalz Newburg (now Hohenegg, 
No. 20) ; Thungen (now Wellington, No. 42) ; Heister, and 
nine companies of Dupigny's horse ; finally of the usual city- 
guard, 1200 strong. In addition to these, all men capable of 
bearing arms were called out and divided into companies. 
These amounted to 2382, and were commanded first by the 
burgomaster, John Andrew von Liebenberg, and after his death 
by fever, by his successor, Daniel Focky. Ambros Frank, a 
member of the inferior town-council, formed a free corps 255 



CHAP. VIII.] BY THE TURKS. 93 

strong, principally composed of tavern-keepers. In the Uni- 
versity, 700 students armed themselves and were distributed 
into three companies under the command of the Rector Mag- 
nifiens, Laurence Grilner. The merchants and wholesale dealers 
formed a company of 250 men. The officials and servants of 
the Imperial household formed a corps of nearly 1000 men, 
commanded by Maximilian, Count of Trautmansdorf. Finally, 
many guilds and corporations formed themselves into companies 
either separate or conjoined. Thus, for example, the butchers 
with the brewers, 294 strong. The bakers, 150. The shoe- 
makers, 288. The remaining handicraftsmen, 300 in number, 
were distributed into two companies; some others were employed 
in the arsenals. The guilds furnished in all 1293 men. The 
number under arms altogether amounted to about 20,000. The 
remaining population was not less than 60,000 souls. 

At sunrise of the 14th July the main force of the enemy 
showed itself on the heights of the Wienerberg. It was difficult 
for the most practised eye to distinguish particular objects from 
amidst the multitudinous crowd of men, horses, camels, and car- 
riages. The mass extended itself from the Lauer wood to near 
the Hundsthmm, by Gumpendorf, Penzing, Ottakrin, Hernals, 
Wahring and Dobling, towards Nussdorf and the Danube, in a 
circuit of some 25,000 paces. The camp was marked out in the 
form of a half-moon. In a few hours 25,000 tents had risen 
from the ground. That of the Vizier waS pitched on the high 
ground in the present suburb of St. Ulric, behind the walls of 
the houses which had been burned. It rivalled in beauty and 
splendour of decoration Soliman's famous pavilion of 1529, being 
of green silk worked with gold and silver, and adorned within 
with pearls, precious stones, and carpets, and contained in a 
central sanctuary the sacred standard of the Prophet. Within its 
precincts w^ere baths, fountains, and flower-gardens, and even a 
menagerie. In respect of its numerous alleys and compartments, 
it was likened to a town of canvas. The value of it with its 
contents was estimated at a million dollars. Under St. Ulric, 
towards the Burg gate, the Aga of the Janissaries had arrayed 
his forces : the precincts of St. Ulric itself were occupied by the 
Tartars under Kara Mehemed. The other Pachas were sta- 
tioned opposite the Karnthner and Stuben gates, and the city was 



94 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap, viii. 

threatened from five distinct quarters, though it was soon easy 
to perceive that the nriain attack would be directed against the 
Burg and the Lobelbastion. The first care of the Turks was to 
plunder and destroy the few buildings which had escaped de- 
struction in the suburbs. 

The church of the Servites in the Rossau was the only edifice 
that escaped, and this exception was due to a singular incident. 
Its distance from the town had preserved it from the general 
conflagration. The Turks are said to have taken the Patriarchs 
depicted on the ceiling, with their long beards and Oriental 
costume, for followers of Mahomet, and under this misappre- 
hension to have spared the church. Such is the solution of 
the fact to be found in all the accounts of the time, but it is pro- 
bable that there was no misapprehension in the case. The 
Mussulman holds the Jewish Patriarchs in as much respect as 
does the Christian, and has even adopted their names, for Ibrahim 
is nothing but Abraham, Musa Moses, &c. &c. It is not there- 
fore necessary to suppose that the Turks entertained the absurd 
notion imputed to them that a Christian temple could have been 
decorated with portraits of Mahometan saints. 



CHAP. IX.] BY THE TURKS. 95 



CHAPTER IX. 

From the 9th to the 17th July. 

The fate of the inhabitants of the small town of Perchtoldsdorf 
forms a sad episode in the annals of the Turkish invasion. So 
early as the 9th July the Tartar horse had appeared in its neigh- 
bourhood. The inhabitants, after the example of their forefathers 
of 1529, converted the church tower and the churchyard with its 
surrounding wall into a fortress, and repulsed without difficulty 
the first attack of the marauders. The attack was repeated on 
tlie following day, but with the same result ; the garrison was 
increased in numbers by many fugitives from other places, and 
the inhabitants, after some days of repose, began to believe that, 
as in 1529, the crisis would pass over without serious conse- 
quences. The bailiff of the market was one Adam Streninger ; 
the other authorities were the parish priest and his coadjutor. 
On the 14th, when the investment of Vienna had been brought 
to bear by the main army of the Turks, their next care was to 
secure the strong places within a certain distance of the city. 
With this view a strong detachment was directed at sunrise of 
the 14th upon Perchtoldsdorf, which began to throw incendiary 
missiles into the place, and speedily set fire to it in various 
quarters. Some citizens ventured upon a daring sally, but the 
small body, not more than thirty in number, were cut down to a 
man. The overwhelming superiority of the enemy's numbers 
and the failure of their own ammunition compelled the inhabi- 
tants entirely to abandon the town and to betake themselves to 
their fortified church and its precincts. The town was given to 
the flames, which raged from 2 p.m. through the following night, 
which was passed by the little garrison in the contemplation of 
this dismal scene, and in the expectation of an attack at sunrise, 
which they had no hope of being able to repel. The Turks, 
however, preferred craft and perfidy to force, and contented 



9G TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. ix. 

themselves with a blockade of the stronghold, which was more- 
over rendered scarcely tenable by the heat and smoke of the 
burning houses adjacent. This state of things lasted till the 
afternoon, when a horseman rode up the main street, dressed in 
the doublet of a German Reiter, but otherwise in Turkish attire, 
and bearing a flag of truce, which he waved towards the church, 
and in the Hungarian language summoned the citizens to sur- 
render, distinctly promising them security of life and property 
on condition of an immediate submission. Such terms, under tlie 
circumstances, were far too favourable to be refused. A man 
and a woman who spoke Hungarian made known their accept- 
ance to the envoy, and a white flag was hung out from the tower 
in token of surrender. On the morning of the I7th a Pacha 
with a strong attendance arrived from the camp, and seating 
himself on a red carpet near the house of the bailifl*, opposite the 
church, announced through an interpreter the following con- 
ditions to the besieged. Firs-t, two citizens were to come out to 
the Turks, and two of the latter to be admitted into the fortress ; 
secondly, as a symbol that the place had not before been yielded 
to an enemy, the keys were to be delivered to the Pacha by a 
maiden with loosened hair and a garland on her head ; thirdly, a 
contribution of 6000 florins was to be levied on the inhabitants. 
This latter demand appears to have protracted the negotiation 
for some hours, but finally half the sum demanded was paid into 
the Pacha's hands, and the remainder was promised for the 29th 
August, the day of St. John the Baptist. These terms arranged, 
the citizens left their stronghold, the daughter of the bailifl', a 
girl of seventeen years, at their head, arrayed according to the 
fanciful conditions above stated. She bore the keys of the place 
on a cushion, and presented them trembling to the Pacha, who 
now required that the whole body of men capable of bearing 
arms should be drawn up in the market-place, for the purpose, 
as he pretended, of judging what number of troops might be re- 
quired for the preservation of order in the town. This requisition 
excited some misgiving among the townsmen, but there was no 
retreat, and they prepared to carry it into effect. As they issued 
from their stronghold bodies of Turkish troops closed about them 
and took from them their weapons, observing that men who had 
surrendered had no longer use for such. Some who hesitated to 



CHAP. IX.] BY THE TURKS. 97 

deliver them were deprived of them by force, and others who, 
from apprehension, paused in the gateway, were dragged out by 
the hair. The Turks loaded some carriages in attendance with 
the arms, and conveyed them away. The men, some 2000 in 
number, were drawn up in ranks in the place opposite the priest's 
house, and surrounded with cavalry. At a signal from the 
Pacha, a troop of the latter dismounted and commenced a diligent 
search of the persons of the prisoners for money or concealed 
weapons. The entrance gate was at the same time strongly 
guarded. Some of the townsmen taking alarm at these proceed- 
ings, with the bailiff at their head, endeavoured to regain the 
church. The Turks pursued them with drawn sabres, and the 
bailiff was cut down on the threshold. The Pacha now rose, 
flung down the table before him, and gave the signal for a general 
massacre, setting the example with his own hand by cutting down 
the trembling girl at his side. The slaughter raged for two 
hours without intermission : 3500 persons were put to the sword 
in the strictest sense of the word, and in a space so confined that 
the expression, '' torrents of blood," so often a figure of speech, 
was fully applicable to this case. The women and children, who 
still remained in the asylum of the church, together with the 
priest and his coadjutor, were dragged into slavery and never 
heard of more. A local tradition avers that one solitary indi- 
vidual returned after a lapse of fifteen years, but as from mal- 
treatment he had lost speech and hearing, he was unable to com- 
municate the story of his escape. Another prevalent report, that 
two townsmen escaped by concealment in the roof of the church, 
is less probable, because the Turks immediately set fire to that 
building. It is certain, however, that three persons did escape, 
but in a different manner. One of them, Hans Schimmer by 
name, a tailor's apprentice and an ancestor of the writer of this 
narrative, wisely fled before the catastrophe to Maria Zell ; 
another, Jacob Holzer, is supposed to have escaped in the first 
confusion ; the third, Balthasar Frank, it is said, hid himself till 
nightfall in the well of the tower, and then found means to 
abscond. This last story, however, is less well authenticated than 
the two former. From the number of the slaughtered, it is 
evident that many of the inhabitants of the places adjacent had 
taken refuge in this devoted town, for the ordinary male popula* 



98 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap, ix* 

tion never reached that number, and those who were carried off 
as slaves are also to be counted. It is probable that among the 
victims were people of condition, for in the course of some exca- 
vations which lately took place in the mound of their sepulture, 
some rings of value, enamelled, and even set with precious stones, 
were discovered. 



CHAP. X.] BY THE TURKS. 99 



CHAPTER X. 

From July 15 to July 30. 

The 15th July, the day from which may be dated the com- 
mencement of the active siege of Vienna, was distinguished by 
an accident which might well have brought that operation to a 
close by the destruction of the city. At two o'clock p.m., some 
time after the Turkish batteries had opened, a fire broke out in 
the Scottish Convent, which, after destroying that establishment, 
rapidly spread to the Renngasse and the neighbourhood of the 
Imperial arsenal, which contained some 1800 barrels of powder. 
Two windows of this building were actually at one moment on 
fire. The exertions, however, of the Commandant and the citizens 
were proportionate to the emergency, the windows were built up 
with great haste, and under a heat which made the operation very 
difficult. This immediate danger averted, a propitious change 
of wind assisted the final extinction, but several palaces and other 
extensive buildings had been destroyed, and for three days the 
smouldering ruins threatened danger and demanded attention. 
Nothing certain was ever known of the origin of the fire. At a 
period of so much alarm and excitement, it was scarcely possible 
that under this uncertainty the public would be satisfied to 
ascribe it to any of the many accidents which may give rise to a 
conflagration in a besieged town. Popular suspicion fell upon 
the Hungarian malecontents, and many acts of cruelty were the 
result of this surmise. Men wearing the Hungarian dress were 
massacred in the streets, but others also fell victims to the spirit 
of frantic and undiscriminating cruelty which panic generally 
engenders. A poor half-witted man, whose eccentricities had 
often afforded amusement at the tables of the wealthy Viennese, 
chose in his folly to discharge a pistol in the direction of the fire: 
he was seized by the populace and torn to pieces. Even an 
Imperial officer, in whose residence some rocket sticks were 

h2 



100 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. x. 

discovered, was flung into prison after terrible maltreatment. 
It required great exertion on the part of the authorities to repress 
this phrenzy, and to bring back the population to that regular 
discharge of duties on which rested the sole chance of salvation 
to the entire community. On this same day, the 15th, the 
trenches were opened against the Burg and Lobel bastions, and 
many Christian prisoners were compelled to labour in them. 
On the part of the town the palisades were completed along the 
counterscarp, the ditches were furnished with traverses, and 
with the necessary passages of communication, and on tlie bas- 
tions arrangements effected for placing in battery about 300 
pieces of cannon. Countermines were now also commenced, in 
conducting which the Venetian Bartholomeo Camuccini and a 
Captain Hafner specially distinguished themselves, being the only 
persons in the city skilled in this branch of engineering. 

On the 16th the Commandant Stahremberg, who with un- 
wearied activity visited every quarter of the defences, was 
wounded in the head by the explosion of a shell. His exertions 
were scarcely interrupted by this accident, for before he was 
sufficiently recovered to walk, he caused himself to be carried in 
a chair to every quarter which required his presence. The stone 
seat is shown to this day, high up in the spire of St. Stephen's, 
from which for many an anxious hour he overlooked the camp 
of the Turks, and watched the movements of their corps and 
the progress of their engineers. The fire of the Turks was 
henceforth sustained with scarcely any interruption, and it has 
been calculated that during the siege upwards of 100,000 shells 
were thrown into the city. If this calculation approach the 
truth, it is difficult to account for the smallness of the amount of 
damage they are known to have produced. The buildings indeed 
of Vienna were then, as now, of very solid construction, and all 
the usual precautions against vertical fire, the placing of beams, 
earth, &c., on the roofs and upper stories, had been resorted to. 
The chronicles of the transaction have however recorded several 
instances of the inefficiency of the Turkish missiles. It is said 
that one of the first shells which fell in the city, near St. 
Michael's, was extinguished by a child of three years old before 
it could burst ; another which fell into a full congregation at 
St. Stephen's, did no injury beyond carrying off* the foot of an 



CHAP. X.] BY THE TURKS. 101 

old woman ; a third fell upon an open barrel of powder, and did 
no mischief. The fragments of these missiles were occasionally 
collected, and after being, according to a custom of the day, 
blessed by a priest, were redischarged at the enemy. The various 
contrivances of the besiegers for incendiary purposes, — arrows 
wrapped with combustible materials, fireballs, &c., — proved 
equally ineffective. To meet indeed this particular danger, the 
wooden shingles with which the houses were generally roofed 
were removed ; a theatre, magnificent and costly, but constructed 
with wood, which then stood on the Burg Place, was pulled 
down ; and, to deaden the rebound of shot or shell, the pavement 
was every where taken up. The vaults of the great churches 
were in general found to supply the best and safest magazines for 
powder : windows, and superfluous entrances of the churches so 
used were walled up. All wells were placed under strict super- 
intendence, and every precaution taken for a due supply of water 
for extinction of fire. 

Up to this moment the insular suburb, Leopoldstadt, had 
remained the only quarter of the suburbs still uninjured and free 
from the presence of the enemy. General Schulz occupied it 
with a detachment of cavalry, and was directed to hold it as long 
as possible. As early, however, as the 16th July, the Princes 
of Wallachia and Moldavia had thrown two bridges over the 
arms of the Danube on either side of this suburb, and the Im- 
perialists, from want of artillery, had been unable to interrupt 
this operation. Early on the 27th the Turks crossed the stream 
in great numbers, favoured by the lowness of the water at this 
season ; and after a conflict of several hours, General Schulz was 
compelled to yield to numbers, and to withdraw his troops to the 
left bank of the Danube. The great bridge of the Danube was 
now broken up, and Leopoldstadt fully abandoned to the enemy. 
The city was now invested on all sides; every communication 
and every channel of supply cut off. The lot of Leopoldstadt 
was a severe one. The authorities had given the inhabitants a 
premature and inconsiderate assurance that the island would be 
permanently held and defended by the Imperial troops ; and, 
relying on this prospect, they had forborne to remove their 
property to any place of safety. It thus happened that not only 
the buildings, but nearly every object they contained, formed 



102 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. x. 

part of the funeral pile which, wherever the Turkish force set 
foot, was lighted to give token of their occupation. Among the 
more smiiptuous of the edifices destroyed was the Imperial villa 
called the Old Favorita (now the Augarten). The Turks opened 
trenches immediately on the island, and established batteries both 
on the Danube bank and near the church of the Brothers of Mercy, 
from which they much annoyed the lower part of the city, and 
especially the Convent of St. Lawrence. Every possible measure 
was adopted for the defence of this quarter of the city ; the 
Kothenthurm gate was closed and barricaded, flanking works were 
constructed, and the windows of adjacent buildings built up, 
loopholes only for musketry being left. On the 2nd August the 
Turks made all their preparations for an assault on this side. 
They sent from Closterneuburg and Nussdorf all their boats down 
the small arm of the Danube, which, being caught in their 
descent by the piers of the bridge which had been removed, so 
clustered together as to form in themselves a sort of bridge. In 
the course of the night, however, the boatmen of the city con- 
trived to set the vessels again afloat. This important service 
was performed under a heavy fire from the island, and cost a 
good many lives in its execution. On the side of the Burg, 
meanwhile, the works of the besiegers above and below ground, 
the battery and the mine, were rapidly pushed forward. The 
approaches, when inspected after the siege, excited the admi- 
ration of the German engineers, for the skill and labour which 
had been bestowed on them. The trenches were twice the height 
of a man in depth, and near the city were roofed with timber 
and sods. Apartments were excavated for the principal officers, 
and those for the Yizier and pachas sumptuously carpeted and 
cushioned. 

To check this dangerous progress a sally took place from the 
town on the 19th of July, the first of the siege, under command 
of Guido Count von Stahremberg, nephew and aide-de-camp to 
the Commandant, and Samson von Stambach, by which some of 
the trenches were filled up, and several of the enemy killed or 
taken. The latter were immediately exchanged, on which oc- 
casion the Grand Yizier presented the drummer who attended 
the flag of truce with three ducats. These sallies were often 
repeated, and gave occasion to the students particularly to dis- 



CHAP. X.J BY THE TURKS. 103 

tinguish themselves by their gallantry and intelligence. Many 
herds of cattle were captured in some of them, and driven into 
the city, affording, under the circumstances of blockade and 
hourly increasing scarcity, a most welcome aid to its resources. 
The principal object of the Turkish fire was the Burg, which 
was riddled with shot- holes : next to this, St. Stephen's tower, 
and the houses from the Carinthian to the Molk bastion. The 
further ravelin of the Lobel bastion was so smashed with shot 
that no one could show himself upon it and live, and the besieged 
were advised to withdraw its armament, and distribute the pieces 
elsewhere. 

On the 23rd of July took place the first assault. Two mines 
which had been carried under the counterscarp of the Burg and 
the Lobel bastion were exploded at the same instant, burying 15 
of the garrison in the ruins, and tearing up twenty palisades. 
The Turks rushed over the ruins to the assault, but were quickly 
and completely repulsed. The second assault, July 25, was 
directed against the face of the Burg ravelin. It followed as 
usual the explosion of a mine, and was led by the Janissaries, who, 
after three successive repulses, retired with a loss of 200 men. 
The besieged, however, had to lament the loss of some valuable 
officers, among them of their chief engineer, Rimpler, who died 
within two days of wounds received in this affair. He is said to 
have been one of the greatest engineers of his day : he had dis- 
tinguished himself at the siege of Philipsburg, under the Mar- 
grave Herman of Baden, and had written works on subjects of 
his profession which still retain their value. On the 27th, an 
assault took place, in the course of which some of the Janissaries 
surmounted the palisades, but only to perish in the ditch. The 
Turks lost 300 men. On the side of the besieged, the Major, 
Baron von Gallenfeld, perished by a poisoned arrow. On the 
20th there came in a Turkish flag of truce, bearing a request on 
the part of the Vizier for an armistice for the purpose of bury- 
ing his dead, and also a summons fraught with the usual threats 
of vengeance and extermination. Stahremberg replied, that in 
the city they were enjoying excellent health, and having no dead 
to bury could not listen to the proposal for an armistice ; as to 
surrender, they had made up their minds on that liead, and were 
prepared to defend the city while they lived A proclamation 



104 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. x. 

was now issued offering a reward of 100 ducats to any one who 
would swim the Danube with letters for the Duke of Lorraine : 
for the moment, however, no candidate presented himself. July 
20th a mine was exploded under the Lobel bastion, 20 of the 
garrison perished, but no assault ensued, and the besieged had 
leisure to repair the damage. On the 29th the palisades of the 
Burg gate ravelin were shattered by a mine. By this time the 
underground operations of the Turks had so far advanced as to 
give them access to the ditch. Although every attempt of the 
Turks to pass the ditch was repulsed in hand-to-hand fight, yet 
the known progress of their engineering operations gave reason 
for expecting an early and general assault of a more formidable 
nature than the former, and the watchful Stahremberg neglected 
no preparation to meet it. The arsenals furnished forth at his 
order quantities of the devices for. laming an advancing enemy, 
known by various names in various services ; in our military lan- 
guage, caltrops ; these were distributed at the expected points of 
attack, and additional lines of palisades were fixed in the inner 
defences. The sound of bells from church or convent was for- 
bidden, with the single exception of the great bell of St. Stephen, 
reserved for signal of assault upon the walls, at which the forces, 
regular and irregular, of the garrison were instructed to hasten 
to their respective posts. From early in the month of August 
the Turks scarcely allowed a day to pass without the explosion 
of one or more mines. On the 3rd, after several severe checks, 
they succeeded in effecting a lodgment on the crown of the coun- 
terscarp of the Lobel bastion, from which, though several Janis- 
saries perished by the springing of a countermine, it was found 
impossible to expel them. They followed -up this advantage by 
measures for filling up the ditch, which were, however, continually 
foiled by the diligence of the garrison in removing the materials. 
On the 6th a Turkish mine blew up a Colonel Leslie and his 
pages. On the 8th, a sally commanded by General Souches did 
much mischief to the approaches of the besiegers. On the 9th 
and 10th similar operations were conducted with still greater 
effect, and the enemy was dislodged from the counterscarp. 
On the last occasion three soldiers of the garrison were blown 
into the air and descended in safety to the earth complaining of 
nothing but severe thirst. At midday of the 12th, the salient 



€BAP. X.] BY THE TURKS. 105 

angle of the Burg ravelin was blown up with an explosion which 
shook half the city. An assault followed, which, after two hours' 
desperate fighting, ended in the retreat of the Turks with a loss 
of 2500 men. The damage was quickly made good. On the 
16th, the Turks, after three repulses, succeeded in effectirtg 
and maintaining a lodgment in the ditch facing the Lobel 
bastion, which enabled them to establish near and destructive 
batteries on the counterscarp against the Burg and the Lobel 
bastion. 

The two commanders, Stahremberg and the Vizier, were alike 
indefatigable in their personal superintendence of their respective 
operations. The latter was carried every third day in a litter, 
made shot proof by plates of iron, into the approaches, inspect- 
ing the works, punishing the idle, and menacing the timid with 
his drawn sabre. He had also in the trenches his own peculiar 
posts sunk deep in the ground, and made bomb proof with planks 
and sand-bags. His favourite position, however, for general 
observation and direction was the tower of the church of St. 
Ulric, from which he overlooked the city, as Stahremberg did 
the camp from his memorable stone chair in the sculptured spire 
of St. Stephen. 

Towards the middle of August an envoy from the Sultan 
reached the camp, charged ostensibly with the conveyance of 
rich presents of honour to the Vizier, furs and jewelled aigrettes, 
but secretly commissioned to ascertain and report upon the 
progress of the siege. He remained a fortnight, and returned 
with a most unfavourable report. On the 15th August the 
Imperial Ambassador, Caprara, arrived in the Turkish camp 
after a long compulsory detention at Pesth. He was escorted 
by a Tschauch, or officer of the body guard, and 300 men. He 
fell in on his dismal march with many of his unhappy country- 
men, a few only of whom he was able, at an exorbitant price, to 
ransom from hopeless slavery. Among these was a girl ten years 
of age, of noble birth and singular beauty, whose name however 
has not reached us. On his arrival in the camp, the Vizier, by 
special order of the Sultan, released him at Tuln, into the hands 
of the Imperialists. It has been said that he brought a proposal 
from the Vizier to abandon the siege of Vienna, and negotiate 
a peace on the sole condition of the surrender of the fortress of 



106 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. x. 

Raab. If this report be founded, as Wagner in his Historia 
Leopoldi Magni supposes, it would show how far the projects 
of the Vizier had been checked by the noble resistance of the 
garrison. If this or any proposal was intrusted to Caprara, it 
remained unanswered. 



CHAP. XI.] BY THE TURKS. 107 



CHAPTER XI. 
From August 1 to August 22. 

As far as feats of arms were concerned, the garrison had as yet 
maintained its own with undaunted resolution and with a success 
unimpaired by any material discomfiture ; but by the middle of 
August the inevitable consequences of so close an investment of 
a large town began to show themselves in the shapes of sickness 
and scarcity. The use of dried and salted meat produced a 
dysentery, which was often mortal both among the soldiery and 
the townspeople. Other forms of disease were attributable to 
the use of beer ill-brewed and hastily consumed, and to the 
accumulation of impurities in the streets. Among the victims 
were the Burgomaster Liebenberg, the Bishop's Yicar of Vienna, 
the Provost of St. Stephen's, the Rector of the University, and 
many other officials and ecclesiastics. The Commandant himself 
was attacked by the epidemic, but, for the good fortune of 
Christendom, recovered. The disease yielded at length, a result 
due in great measure to the exertions of the admirable Kollon- 
itsch, who visited the hospitals daily ; and to the sanatory 
regulations of the authorities, who carried a stricter supervision 
into the proceedings of the bakers and the brewers, particularly 
into the brewery which supplied the Burg Hospital. The pro- 
visions specially productive of the dysentery, such as herrings, 
which were much sought after by the soldiers, were confiscated. 
The sick townspeople were carefully separated from the healthy, 
and conveyed into temporary hospitals. The sick and wounded 
of the soldiers were distributed among the convents, and the city 
provided for their use 500 measures of wine and 4500 ells of 
linen. Cesspools were dug to supply the place of the ordinary 
outlets and transport of the filth of the city ; the kennels were 
irrigated, and proper officers appointed under the direction of 
Kollonitsch to carry these systematic measures into effect, and 



108 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap, xi. 

made responsible for their execution. The Vizier, whose 
confidence, possibly somewhat abated by the course of military 
events, had been revived by the reports of the condition of the 
garrison, is said to have vowed vengeance against the prelate 
who had thus assumed the noble attitude of the Prophet between 
the people and the plague ; and to have destined his head as a 
present to the Sultan. He did not foresee from whose shoulders 
such a peace-offering would ultimately be culled. Coupled with 
these sanatory regulations, others were put in force to prevent 
premature exhaustion of the means of subsistence in the city, 
which fortunately were so ample as only to require good economy 
to make them sufficient. Twenty hand-mills and five horse- 
mills were established under regulation of the authorities for 
the supply of flour. Lists of prices of the principal articles of 
subsistence are given in the records of the time, which, in 
themselves, would convey little information to readers not familiar 
with the measures in use, and with the current prices of the 
day, but which indicate considerable abundance as still existing 
at this period of the siege, and which also show that prices were 
quadrupled before the siege was raised. The price of wine, in 
particular, appears to have been low even in comparison with 
the ordinary prices of the time and locality. The great cellars 
of the city were reported to contain 169,000 eimers, of which 
32,000 belonged to the three colleges of the Jesuits, and other 
ecclesiastical establishments possessed a large portion of the 
remainder. The stock of the numerous private traders, and the 
wine-growers of the neighbourhood was not, it would appear, 
included in this return. The military measures of defence, 
meanwhile, were carried on, as was well needed, with unabated 
vigour. The Captain, Elias Kuhn,a Silesian gentleman, gained 
great credit by his services as an engineer. The citizens showed 
the greatest alacrity. V^^hile i 300 of their body were required 
for daily service at various posts, they furnished, in addition, 
from thirty to forty waggons for the daily transport of every 
necessary article to the works, and many of their horses wore 
sacrificed in this service. In contemplation of the last extremity, 
chains were furnished from the arsenals to be drawn across the 
streets. The rings for these are still to be seen in the walls in 
various parts of the city. To watch the motions of the enemy, 



CHAP. XI.] BY THE TURKS. 109 



two Jesuits were constantly stationed on the tower of Saint 
Stephen provided with telescopes, who furnished written reports 
of their observations to the Commandant. The latter took up 
his residence in the outer court of the Burg, in the immediate 
neighbourhood of the principal point of attack, and on his own 
punctual and conspicuous performance of his duties, established his 
claim to exact the same from others, and to punish or rebuke every 
instance of neglect or failure. A lieutenant in command of the 
watch at the most dangerous part of the Lobel bastion neglected 
to prevent the enemy from forming by night a timber defence 
ao-ainst sallies. A court-martial sentenced him to death. The 
Commandant pardoned him on condition that he v/ould conduct 
a sally with 29 men and destroy the defences so thrown up. He 
succeeded, but perished in the execution. Two soldiers, who, 
upon some dispute as to their pay, rose upon and maltreated an 
officer, were compelled to throw dice for the life of one, and the 
loser underwent the penalty. A population so numerous could 
not but comprise some faint hearts. An order was issued 
that any one who, from cowardice, should absent himself from 
liis appointed duty should be hanged from his own window. A 
commission was appointed to undertake a search for delinquents 
through the four quarters of the city. We hear of no executions 
in consequence, but the menace is said to have produced a con- 
siderable and welcome accession of able-bodied defenders to the 
walls, who were encouraged to their duty by a bounty of three 
rix-dollars and ample rations of bread and wine. During the 
entire siege, indeed, the fighting men were liberally provided for, 
and clergy as well as laity opened their cellars for their refresh- 
ment. The besiegers meanwhile pushed forward their works 
with unwearied activity. It is, however, unaccountable that 
their leaders, who usually showed so much eagerness to possess 
themselves of every commanding position in the neighbourhood 
of a besieged fortress, should have neglected to establish them- 
selves on the adjacent heights of the Kahlenberg. These ac- 
clivities presented not only a cover to the motions of an army 
advancing to raise the siege, but a post of the utmost importance 
if once occupied, and the assemblage of the army of the Empire 
at Crems could be no secret to the Turks. The latter neverthe- 
less contented themselves with the useless destruction of the 



110 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. xi. 

Camalduline Convent and the desecration of the tomb of the 
Margrave in its chapel, and then abandoned the position without 
leaving either garrison or corps of observation, an error which 
was certainly the main cause of the ultimate catastrophe. 

For several days the offer had been promulgated of a con- 
siderable reward to the man who would brave the adventure of 
endeavouring to make his way with dispatches to the camp of 
the Duke of Lorraine, when on the 6th of August a trooper of 
Count Gotz's regiment made his appearance in the city, having 
swum the various arms of the Danube, and bearing a letter well 
secured in wax. The hearts of the besieged were thus gladdened 
with the tidings of the assemblage and daily increase of the 
Christian army, and with the assurance of early relief. The 
safe arrival of this messenger was announced to the yet distant 
army by a discharge of rockets. The messenger was less fortu- 
nate in his attempt to return. He was taken by the Turks and 
brought before the Yizier. The dispatch with which he was 
intrusted being written in cypher, he was closely interrogated 
as to its contents and as to the condition of the city. He cun- 
ningly invented a tale of despair, and described the defenders of 
the place as depressed in spirits, exhausted in resources, and on 
the verge of surrender. The invention saved his life. The 
Vizier proclaimed these tidings through the camp, and caused 
the cypher dispatch to be shot back into the city attached to an 
arrow, with an appendix to the purport that it was needless to 
write in cypher, for the wretched condition of those who had 
sent it was well known to the world, and was but the just punish- 
ment of men who had awakened the wrath of the Sultan. Soon 
after this transaction Christopher von Kunitz, a servant of Ca- 
prara, who had been detained in the Turkish camp, found means 
to escape into the city. He brought an account that the Yizier 
fully expected to have Vienna in his power within a few days, 
and that many of the Magnates of Hungary, considering the 
cause o^ Austria as desperate, had come into the camp to do 
homage to the Vizier. He gave also a dismal confirmation of 
the ravage of the surrounding country, of which the Viennese 
had partial evidence in their own observation. On the 9th of 
August, Michael Gregorowitz, a Greek by birth, once a Lieute- 
nant in the Heister regiment, leaving the city in a Turkish dis- 



CHAP. XL] BY THE TURKS. Ill 

guise, crossed the Danube with dispatches for the Duke of Lor- 
raine. A fire signal from the crest of the Bisamberg conveyed 
the intelligence of the safe accomplishment of his enterprise, and 
he was rewarded with promotion to the rank of Captain. He 
did not, however, succeed in effecting his return. The condition 
of affairs in the city began to be serious : the enemy made daily 
progress in his approaches, and no more volunteers came for- 
ward for the dangerous task of conveying intelligence to the 
army of the increasing pressure. At last George Francis Kol- 
schitzki, a partisan officer whose name deserves honourable 
record for the importance of his services, and the courage and 
dexterity with which they were executed, stepped forward. A 
Pole by birth, and previously an interpreter in the service of the 
Oriental merchants' company, he had become a citizen of the 
Leopoldstadt, and had served since the siege began in a free corps. 
Intimately conversant with the Turkish language and customs, 
he willingly offered himself for the dangerous office of passing 
through the very camp of the Turks to convey intelligence to 
the Imperial army. On the 13th of August, accompanied by a 
servant of similar qualifications, he was let out through a sally- 
port in the Rothenthurm, and escorted by an aide-de-camp of the 
Commandant as far as the palisades. He had scarcely advanced 
a hundred yards, when he became aware of a considerable body 
of horse which advanced at a rapid pace towards the place of his 
exit. Being as yet too near the city to escape suspicion, he 
hastily turned to the left and concealed himself in the cellar of 
a ruined house of the suburb near Altlerchenfeld, where he kept 
close till the tramp of the passing cavalry had died away. He 
then pursued his course, and, singing a Turkish song, traversed at 
an idle pace and with an unembarrassed air the streets of Turkish 
tents. His cheerful mien and his familiar strain took the fancy 
of an Aga, who invited him into his terlt, treated him with coffee, 
listened to more songs and to his tale of having followed the army 
as a volunteer, and cautioned him against wandering too far and 
falling into Christian hands. Kolschitzki thanked him for the 
advice, passed on in safety through the camp to beyond its verge, 
and then as unconcernedly made for the Kahlenberg and the 
Danube. Upon one of its islands he saw a body of people, who, 
misled by his Turkish attire, fired upon him and his companion. 



112 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. xi. 

These were some inhabitants of Nussdorf, headed by the bailiff 
of that place, who had made this island their temporary refuge 
and home. Kolschitzki explained to them in German the 
circumstances of his mission, and entreated them to afford him 
an immediate passage over the river. This being obtained, he 
reached without further difficulty the bivouac of the Imperial 
army, then on its march between Angern and Stillfried. After 
delivering and receiving dispatches, the adventurous pair set out 
on their return, and after some hairbreadth escapes from the 
Turkish sentries, passed the palisades and re-entered the city by 
the Scottish gate, bearing a letter from the Duke to the follow- 
ing purport : — '^ He had received with deep emotion the intelli- 
gence of the loss of so many brave officers and soldiers, and of 
the sad condition of the city consequent both on this loss 
in action and on the epidemic. He retained his hopes that 
the defenders of a place so important would never relax 
in their noble efforts for its preservation. A considerable 
army was already collected for its relief. Reinforcements were 
daily arriving from Bavaria, Franconia, and Saxony, and the 
Duke was only waiting the arrival of the numerous forces of 
Poland, commanded by their king in person, which was to be 
expected by the end of August at the latest, to put the united 
mass in motion for the raising of the siege." As an appendix to 
these assurances was added the consolatory intelligence of the 
surrender of Presburgh to the Imperialists, and of the defeat of 
Tekeli in two actions. The safe return of the bearer of this 
dispatch was announced as usual by rockets as night signals, and 
in the day by a column of smoke from St. Stephen's spire. On 
the 21st August the daring Kolschitzki was on the point of re- 
peating his adventurous undertaking, when a deserter, who had 
been recaptured, and was standing under the gallows with the 
halter adjusted, confessed that he had furnished to the Turks an 
accurate description of Kolschitzki's person. He was himself 
deterred by this warning, but his gallant companion, George Mi- 
chailowich, found means twice to repeat the exploit, with the same 
safety and success as in the first instance. On his second return 
he displayed a remarkable presence of mind and vigour of arm. 
Having all but reached the palisades, he was joined by a Turkish 
horseman, who entered into familiar conversation with him. As 



CHAP. XI.] BY THE TURKS. 113 

it was, however, impossible for him to follow further his path 
towards the city, in such company, by a sudden blow he struck 
his unwelcome companion's head from his shoulders, and spring- 
ing on the riderless horse, made his way to the gate. He did 
not, however, after this success, tempt his fortune again. He 
brought on this occasion an autograph letter from the Emperor, 
full of compliments and promises, which was publicly read in the 
Rathhaus.* In contrast to so many examples of patriotism and 
self-exposure, there were not wanting instances of treason. A 
youth of sixteen, who had twice ventured into the Turkish camp 
and brought back intelligence which proved to be unfounded, 
was arrested and put to the question. He had been apprentice 
to a distiller, or vender of strong liquors (in the vulgar tongue 
of Vienna, called a water-burner). In his confession, extorted 
by torture, he stated that the severity of his master had driven 
him from his employment, and, having no other refuge, he had 
found means to escape to the camp. Promises of reward had in- 
duced him to undertake to procure for the Turks accurate infor- 
mation of the weak points of the defences, the strength of the 
garrison, the state of its supplies, &c. He at the same time 
accused a man of the cavalry stables as having instigated him to 
these courses. Being, however, confronted with this man, he 
totally failed in maintaining the charge. He was executed with 
the sword. The audacity of a younger traitor, a boy ten years 
of age, was still more extraordinary. He was arrested on 
the 10th August, while entering the city at a slow pace. When 
questioned as to the cause of his having ventured into the 
Turkish camp, he alleged that his parents, having been in- 
habitants of the suburb, had been detained by the Turks ; that 
his father was compelled to work in the trenches, and his mother 
to sew sandbags for the sappers. While they were conducting 
him for his subsistence and safe custody to the Burger Hospital, 
the unfortunate urchin was met by his mother, who flew at him 
with reproaches for his long absence, and from her it was soon 
ascertained that she had never been in the Turkish camp, and 

* Kolnitschki's services would appear to have made a deep impression 
on the public mind. Several narratives of his adventures were published at 
the time ; and his portrait, in his Turkish costume, figures in the frontispiece 
of most of them. — E. 



114 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap, xi. 

that the boy's father was dead. After this unlucky meeting the 
boy, taken before the authorities, confessed that he had carried 
to the enemy intelligence that several guns on the defences had 
been rendered unserviceable ; that the wheaten loaves were no 
longer so white nor so heavy as they had been, that the commis- 
sariat bread was become black and scarcely eatable ; that many 
soldiers had died of such victual, and that the garrison had lost 
all courage for fighting. After endeavouring, with cunning be- 
yond his years, but in vain, to fix on others the guilt of having 
instigated his treason, this precocious criminal, for whom whip- 
ping would have answered every legitimate purpose of punish- 
ment, was beheaded. Two soldiers, taken in the act of deserting, 
suflPered with him. The practice of straying beyond the lines for 
the real, or alleged, purpose of seeking for plunder, in the ruins 
of the suburb, had become frequent, and it was thought necessary 
to check proceedings so favourable to desertion and treason by 
tliis example, and by severe edicts. 



CHAP. XII.] BY THE TURKS. 115 



CHAPTER XII. 

23rd August to 8th September. 

On the 23rd of August, the enemy, after repeated assaults, had 
all but gained possession of the Burg ravelin, and had set on 
fire the palisades in face of the portion of that work still held by 
the garrison. This the soldiers, carrying water to it in their 
steel caps, succeeded in extinguishing, and the further advance 
of the Turks was checked. An assault ensued, in which the 
combatants mingled hand to hand. The Ottoman sabre, as on 
other similar occasions, failed in close conflict with the ponde- 
rous weapons wielded by the German arm — the halberd, the 
scythe,* the morning star, and the battle-axe, aided by the 
pitch and water cauldron ; and the Turks retired with a loss of 
200 men. In various of the adjacent open spaces of the city 
great fires were kept up to supply the last-mentioned ingredients, 
which were cooked in huge cauldrons, and transported in smaller 
vessels, principally by w omen and children, to the walls. Many 
Turks were greeted with the contents as they mounted the 
breach, and finished by a second application as they lay scalded 
and blinded in the ditch below. Six hundred and sixty-nine 
cwt. of pitch were used during the siege ; but a large part 
of this was doubtless applied for the purpose of lighting up 
the ditch, and discovering the nightly operations of the Turkish 
sappers immediately below the rampart. On this day the Turks 
were seen from the walls to transport a considerable force of 
cavalry to the left bank of the Danube, the men in boats, the 

* Count Daun is said to have first suggested the use of the scythe affixed 
to a loDg staff for the defence of the breaches at this siege. Under the name 
of the Lochaber axe it had long been used by the Scots. In the recent wars 
of liberty in Poland it has acquired much celebrity, and many stories are 
told of its terrible effects in the hands of the peasantry. Of the weapon 
called the morning star, a species of club with spikes, 600 were furnished 
from the arsenal. — E. 

i2 



116 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. xii. 

horses swimming beside them. This strong detachmxent was 
sent to reinfore the Pacha of Peterwaradin, who had crossed 
the river near Presburg to attack the Duke of Lorraine, who 
was keeping the field near the Bisamberg with his cavalry. Few 
of this united Turkish force returned to tell the tale of the 
thorough defeat they received at the hands of Lorraine, who 
drove them into the Danube with a loss of twenty-five standards. 
A Polish contingent, under Prince Lubomirski, assisted at this 
victory, and much distinguished itself. Its services on this 
occasion were the first fruits of the Polish alliance. Lubo- 
mirski's junction with the Imperialists was an independent 
movement, and in the first instance excited some jealousy in the 
mind of Sobieski. Aug. 25, a gallant sally took place for the 
purpose of checking the operations of the Turkish miners against 
the Lobel bastion, and driving them from the ditch. The young 
Duke of Vv^irtemberg, who was overlooking this operation from 
the wall, seeing his troops hard pressed, in spite of all remon- 
strance, descended at the head of a reinforcement in person to 
the fray, and drove the Turks as far as their first battery. With 
equal courage he conducted the retreat. The sally was brilliant 
and successful, but cost the besieged 200 men and several 
officers. The Duke himself was wounded in the calf of the leg 
by an arrow, and thereby disabled for the rest of the siege. 
For several successive days the Burg ravelin continued to be 
the scene of murderous assault and successful resistance, of 
which it would be tedious to narrate particulars. Both par- 
ties, meanwhile, began to feel sensibly the effects of the long 
endurance of the siege. In the Mahometan ranks, and espe- 
cially among the Janissaries, a prejudice, of the nature of a 
superstition assigned forty days as the limit to which an opera- 
tion of this nature could be extended. They considered it, at 
least, as a prerogative of their body to mutiny against an ex- 
tension of that period. In the city, on the other hand, the 
condition of affairs had assumed a gloomy complexion. The 
casualties of war and disease had materially thinned the ranks of 
the garrison, and the mine and the battery, especially the former, 
had made gaps of ruin in the defences which no exertion of the 
besieged could fully repair, and which it became daily more 
difficult to maintain against the rush of numbers. Many of their 



cnAP. XII.] BY THE TURKS. X17 

guns had been rendered unserviceable ; but the want of skilled 
artillery officers and men, with whom the city from the first had 
been ill provided, was still more severely felt. The engineer, 
Eimpler, had fallen ; the colonel Werner, who commanded the 
ordnance, and who had effected his entrance into the city on the 
17th July, lay wounded and disabled; and before the close of 
the siege, but two regular artillery officers remained fit for ser- 
vice. The outworks from the Burg, almost to the Scottish gate, 
were nothing but a mass of rubbish. The Lobel bastion in par- 
ticular, and the adjacent houses in the street of that name, 
had specially suffered ; but still more so the dwelling which still 
bears the name of the Turks' House. Scarcity also was making 
rapid strides ; and if the casualties of war diminished the number 
of consumers, falling as they did principally on the fighting men 
they also made it impossible to repeat the sallies which in the 
early part of the siege had sometimes swept into the city the 
cattle of the Turkish commissariat. The Turks, while their 
large force enabled them to close hermetically every channel of 
supply to the city, guarded their own communications with the 
utmost vigilance. Forage for the live cattle and sheep still in 
the city had also failed, and the supplies of the public shambles 
at the Lichtensteg and the Eothenthurm, were as lean and dry 
as they were dear and scanty. The small store of dried provi- 
sion which remained Avas reserved for the soldiery, and the 
citizens at large were exposed to severe privation. The streets 
leading to the shambles were crowded with females, who often 
had to return home with empty baskets. The price of a pound 
of beef had risen in the proportion of 1 to 9, and sometimes 12. 
Articles of daily subsistence to families of middle rank had now 
become the luxuries of the rich. An egg cost half a dollar, 
pork eight silver groschen the pound ; veal and poultry no longer 
existed. Under these circumstances, cats no longer enjoyed the 
immunity due, in times of peace and plenty, to their domestic 
virtues, and the chase of this animal in cellars and over roofs 
became not merely a pastime of the young and mischievou'^, but 
the occupation of serious and hungry men. The Viennese love 
for a jest is discernible in the appellation of dachshase, or roof 
hare, bestowed on this new object of the chase. 

The perilous condition of the city was announced to its yet 



118 TWO SIEGES OF A^IENNA, [chap. xii. 

distant friends by discharges of rockets through the nights of the 
24th, 28 th, and 30th. They were answered by fire-signals from 
the crest of the Bisamberg ; but it was not from the left bank of 
the Danube that succour was to be expected, and no cheering 
sign yet broke the darkness in the direction of the Kahlenberg. 
The besieged looked forward with deep anxiety to the 29th August, 
the anniversary of the decapitation of St. John, one held peculiarly 
sacred and fortunate by the Turks. In Soliman's reign it was the 
day of the fall of Ehodes, of Belgrade, of Pesth, and of that fight 
of Mohacs of which three centuries have not effaced the recollec- 
tion. A general assault was reasonably to be expected on this 
awful anniversary ; but it passed over with no other occurrence 
than the ordinary explosion of some mines, and a cannonade prin- 
cipally directed at St. Stephen's. The scanty portion of the 
Burg ravelin yet held by the besieged had now become unten- 
able. Its communication with the curtain behind was all but 
cut off, and a reluctant order was at length, on the 3rd Septem- 
ber, issued to the officer in command to withdraw his men, which 
was as reluctantly obeyed, the artillery having been previously 
removed, and the palisades burnt. It had been actively assailed 
for twenty-nine days, had withstood fifteen main assaults and 
the explosion of ten powerful mines, and had been the grave of 
many thousands of the Turks. Its defence, which was closed in 
the last moment of withdrawal by the death of the officer in 
command of the day, a Captain Muller, has been considered by 
military writers as one of the finest on record. The Grand 
Vizier gave it a name which implied that the arts of hell and 
magic had been applied to its defence. During the French 
occupation of 1809, this outwork, worthy of being preserved as 
a monument, was blown up, and altogether levelled by order of 
Napoleon. The Turks took immediate advantage of their acqui- 
sition to plant on it two guns and two mortars, from which they 
opened a heavy fire on the main defences. The danger was now 
become most imminent, and called for the application of every 
resource, and the exertion of every faculty, to meet it. Every 
gate except the Stuben, still reserved as a sally-port, was barri- 
caded afresh with masonry and timber; the chains were drawn 
across the streets, especially those which led to the Lobel ; new 
batteries were erected ; and internal defences so accumulated one 



CHAP. XII.] BY THE TURKS. 119 

behind the other, that, at every ten paces, there rose a breastwork 
thronged with men and bristling with palisades. In the interior 
even of the city, at the entrance of the Ballplatz, and near the hotel 
then occupied by the Spanish ambassador (now the Chancery), 
were bulwarks, strengthened with beams, and fenced hj ditches ; 
and orders were issued to break away the iron gratings of the 
windows, in order, if necessary, to apply these also to the defence 
of the streets. In every cellar of the neighbouring houses were 
placed vessels of water, and drums with pease strewn on their 
parchment, to give warning, by their vibratory motion, of the ap- 
proach of the Turkish miners. The subterranean w^arfare was car- 
ried on with much effect by the Austrian counterminers, who fre- 
quently succeeded in burying or suffocating the Turkish labourers, 
and carried off many hundredweights of powder from their cham- 
bers. The tenacity of the Turks in prosecuting this mode of at- 
tack is shown by the loss they experienced : 16,000 of their miners 
perished during the siege. On one occasion a fourier or quarter- 
master of the Beck regiment having detected the end of a mine, 
sprung like Curtius into the abyss, and encountering five Turks, 
killed three, and drove the other two to flight. The neighbour- 
hood of the Burg bastion was the scene of the principal of these 
exploits, and under that fortification occurred also the discovery, 
more interesting to antiquarians than soldiers, of an ancient stair 
of sixty-six steps. As the excavations in this quarter soon de- 
scended into water, the operations of the enemy were the less to 
be dreaded, and the vigilance of the besieged was relaxed, but 
the cellars near the Burg were nevertheless still garrisoned by 
night, and it was thought necessary to extend this precaution 
shortly to other parts of the city. The armed force of the city, 
both regular and irregular, w^as now so reduced in numbers by 
repeated assaults and sallies, that the remnant began to pine for 
the long promised relief. The Burg ravelin being now in the 
hands of the enemy, the Burg itself, as well as the Lobel bastion, 
were hourly threatened with the same fate, the more so that the 
curtain which connected them was so ruined as scarcely to afford 
a shelter to the troops which manned it. Almost every house in 
the city was thronged with invalids; and while the energies of 
the besieged sunk under such pressure, it was to be expected 
that the courage and hopes of the assailants would rise in pro- 



120 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. xii. 

portion. This was not, however^ the case. While through the 
livelong night whole clusters of rockets were discharged together 
at frequent intervals as signals of increasing distress and danger, 
and as invocations for succour, there was trouble also in the 
camp. On the 24th August a mutinous spirit had displayed itself 
among the Janissaries. The term of 40 days, to which, for love 
of the Sultan and the Vizier, they had added three, was expired, 
and they demanded to be released from further duty in the 
trenches. The exhortations and prophecies of the Yani Effendi, 
a popular preacher, had persuaded them to await the famous an- 
niversary of St. John, and the effect of the extensive mines which 
had been pushed under the works of the citadel. These mines, 
however, had failed ; it became difficult to keep the secret of 
that failure from the troops, and the day of St. John had passed, 
as we have seen, without any signal occurrence. The troops, 
too, under command of the Pacha of Aleppo had even left the 
trenches, and it required the influence of the Grand Yizier in 
person to bring them back to their duty by promises and fearful 
threats. He was driven at this crisis to the temporary expedient 
of promulgating a report of the sudden death of the Emperor 
Leopold. The Yizier went so far as to order a general discharge 
of cannon and musketry throughout the camp, a proceeding 
which puzzled for a while but did not succeed in alarming the 
garrison, for the alleged cause of rejoicing did not obtain a mo- 
ment's credence in the city. The adoption of such expedients 
by the Yizier, and his general mode of conducting the military 
operations at this period, are explained, in the opinion of many, 
on the theory of his desire to obtain possession of the city by 
capitulation and not by storm. At a period when the result of 
a simultaneous attack, from the ruined siate of the defences, 
could no longer have been doubtful, he preferred, it is said, to 
send his troops against the breach in isolated detachments, un- 
equal to cope with the resistance which the garrison, however 
weakened, was still able to oppose to them. Having destined 
the valuables of the imperial residence for his own treasury, he 
was unwilling to expose them to the indiscriminate plunder of a 
final assault. He was anxious also to preserve from destruction 
the city itself as the future seat of government for a dynasty of 
the West, of which he intended to be himself the founder. 



CHAP. XII.] BY THE TURKS. 121 



Writers contemporary and subsequent have concurred in assign- 
ing these motives and this policy to Kara Mustapha, and in 
looking upon him as a Moslem Wallenstein, prepared, in reliance 
on the devotion of the army, to brave the displeasure of his 
sovereign, and possibly to throw off his allegiance. It was only 
towards the end of the siege and under the prospect of failure 
that these views underwent alteration, and that he became dis- 
posed to force an entrance at any sacrifice. By this time, how- 
ever, the spirit of his troops was so depressed that, as we learn 
from Demetrius Kantemir's history of the Ottoman Empire, 
they often exclaimed, as if addressing the armies of Lorraine 
and Sobieski, " O ye unfaithful, if you will not come yourselves, 
let us see at least the crests of your caps over the hills ; for these 
once seen, the siege will be over and we shall be released." The 
demonstration of such a spirit as this left the Vizier no longer a 
choice as to his measures. Though he was still incredulous as 
to the junction of the Polish forces, and still more so as to the 
appearance of their terrible commander in the field, the gathering 
strength of the Imperialists and their preparations for a forward 
movement could be no secret even to one so negligent in pro- 
curing intelligence from that important quarter, and he deter- 
mined upon a conclusive effort. On the 4th September an 
explosion took place towards the eastern end of the Burg 
bastion, the more violent because of the solidity of that work's 
construction : 4000 Turks, directed by the Vizier in person, 
rushed forward to the assault. From every alarm-post the 
besieged hastened to the point of attack, and amono;* the fore- 
most was Stahremberg, accompanied by his whole staff, pre- 
pared and probably expecting to die in the breach, which to a 
breadth of more than five fathoms had been opened by the 
explosion. The rubbish had fallen outwards, filling the ditch 
and facilitating the advance of the Turks, who, armed with sabre 
and target, and bearing baskets of earth on their backs, were 
thronging up the ascent. The shout of Allah was heard nearer 
and nearer, and some bold hands had already planted the horse- 
tails on the crest of the rampart, when the fire of the besieged 
filled the ditch with the bodies of the bravest. The fight raged 
for two hours, and the Turks once more retired with a loss of 
500 men. The garrison, however, could ill spare a loss of 117 



122 TWO SIEGES OP VIENNA, [chap, xii, 

men and two captains. The fighting had no sooner ceased than 
every available material was used to repair the breach. Besides 
the usual appliances of timber, sand-bags, and ox-hides, mattresses 
and reed mats were pressed into this service. The heavy wooden 
wine -presses were broken up and the rafters taken from the roofs 
for the same purpose, and ramparts of planks, in engineering 
phraseology mantelets, fitted with wheels, were prepared and 
brought down to the scene of danger. The other portions of 
the defences were intersected with fresh traverses, and armed with 
additional guns. A corps 400 strong was raised from parties 
who had been hitherto exempted from military duty, clerks and 
artisans in the most indispensable departments of industry. The 
nightly discharges of rockets from St. Stephen's were thicker 
and more frequent than before. The city was in its last agonies. 
On the 6th, an explosion brought down a length of ^\e fathoms 
of the wall, 24 feet thick, of the Lobel bastion, making a breach 
less defensible than that in the Burg bastion, because the para- 
pets of the wall which remained had been previously destroyed. 
The fury of the assault which followed, and the tenacity of the 
resistance, may be measured by the Turkish loss of 1500 men. 
Two standards were at one moment planted on the rampart. A 
house in the Lobelstrasse opposite the spot where this took place 
is still called the Turks' house, and bears a date and a painting 
of a Turk's head commemorative of the occurrence. On the 
evening of this day, five rockets were observed to rise from the 
Kahlenberg.* That short-lived apparition was suflRcient to scatter 
the clouds of despondency which had so long been gathering 
over the city. The lighthouse which identifies the promontory, 
or the star which marks the Pole, never sparkled on the eye of 
the anxious mariner with more of comfort. and assurance than 
that fiery sign conveyed to the watchman on the rampart, or the 
Jesuit on the spire. It indicated not only that the Imperial 
army had crossed the river, but that its outposts had crowned 
the heights and occupied the passes which commanded its only 

* I give this incident as I find it in the work from which these pages are 
borrowed, and in other accounts, but I am at a loss to account for the alleged 
date of its occurrence. The army of the Christian allies had not completed 
its passage of the river, ana was mustering in the camp of Tuln, and I can 
find no account of any reconnaissance being pushed forward at this date. 
The statements, however, of the fact are numerous and positive. — E. 



CHAP. XII.] BY THE TURKS. 123 

access to the relief of the city, heights and passes which nothing 
but judicial blindness could have prevented the Turks from 
occupying in force. Still the salvation of the city hung on a 
thread. As the imperial army approached, the incentive to 
attack rose in intensity in the same proportion with the motive 
to resistance, and it was to be expected that the struggle would 
be waged to the last with increased energy. Every device of 
war was exhausted by Stahremberg to provide that no inch of 
advance should be gained by the enemy unpurchased by streams 
of his blood. All the ominous preparations for a street fight 
were redoubled. The houses nearest the breach were converted 
into batteries ; every avenue to it from the interior thronged with 
soldiers. The city force was mustered at its alarm-posts, waiting 
for the bell of St. Stephen's to proclaim the moment of the 
assault. It never came. The Turks, though they continued to 
mine under the city, pushing one of their galleries as far as the 
church of the Minorites, never again showed themselves above 
ground beyond the mouths of their parallels. On the 8th Sep- 
tember there was strange movement in their camp. Camels were 
loaded, horses were saddled. More rockets rose from the Kahlen- 
berg. 



124 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. xiii. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

To preserve the narrative of the siege unbroken down to the 
critical period at which it has now arrived, it has been necessary 
to withhold our attention from the proceedings of the Duke of 
Lorraine and the army of the Empire. We left them in the 
early part of July unable to cope with the tenfold numbers of the 
Turkish host, and compelled to await at safe distance, and 
scarcely in a threatening attitude, the accession of German levies 
and of the promised succour of the Poles. The former mustered 
with somewhat of the slowness and circumspection which have 
in all ages characterized the motions of the G-ermanic body. 
Distance retarded the junction of the Poles, whose contingents 
had in many instances to march from the Ukraine. The first 
care then of Lorraine, was to bring together the troops of the 
Empire, and Crems, with its bridge over the Danube, was the 
main position chosen for that purpose. In the first instance, 
indeed, the Duke had proposed to make a stand in the Leopold- 
stadt, and by means of tetes-du-pont at the several bridges of the 
arms of the river, to keep up a direct communication with the 
city, virtually, in fact, to make his force a part of the garrison. 
The danger of such an expedient, however, became instantly pal- 
pable. The summer was a dry one, and the small arm of the 
river nearest the city was fordable in several places. To place 
10,000 cavalry in a position so acceptable to the attack of the 
whole Turkish army, and which also from its relative level was 
commanded from the whole extent of the opposite banks, would 
have been certain destruction. The army of Tekeli, also, coming 
over the Marchfield, threatened the rear of the Imperialists, and 
gavo them much anxiety. The Duke therefore selected a series 
of positions the best calculated to prevent the enemy from occu- 
pying the left bank of the Danube, and shifted his head-quarters 
as circumstances indicated, between Jedlesee and Stockerau, till 
he finally fixed them at Crems. His next care was to arm and 



CHAP. XIII.] BY THE TURKS. 125 

garrison as extensively as possible the fortified and tenable places 
of Lower Austria. He confided Crems to the care of the gene- 
rals Dunnewald and Leslie, Tuln to the Baron d'Orlique ; and 
even Closterneuburg, scarcely five English miles from Vienna, 
which had beaten off an attack of the Turks, under its com- 
mandant. Marcel Ortner, was supplied with a garrison. Count 
ITerberstein covered with a corps the avenues to Styria, already 
threatened by the enemy. Neustadt was sufficiently garrisoned ; 
and in several instances from these strongholds successful sallies 
were directed against the marauding bands of the enemy. Mea- 
sures, late indeed, but energetic, were also adopted for the internal 
defence of the Austrian provinces. Otho, Count of Traun, in 
Lower, and Wolf, Count of Weissenthurn, in Upper Austria, 
directed these with much judgment and activity. The forest 
passes were guarded with abattis ; the fords, especially those of 
Ybbs and Ens, with palisaded works ; and the peasantry sum- 
moned and organised for the defence of the castles and convents. 
Many more instances of courage and conduct occurred in the 
defence of places than it would be possible here to particularize. 
The inhabitants of Closterneuburg, commanded by the Sacristan 
of their convent, Marcellin Ortner, on three occasions beat off 
the assault of many thousand Turks. Gregory Miiller, Abbot 
of Molk, exchanged the crosier for the sword, and at the head of 
the armed burghers, by the skilful use of this irregular force, 
kept the Turks at a distance, though they had encamped on the 
Steinfeld between St. Polten and Wilhelmsburg, and had burnt the 
suburbs of St. Polten. 2000, however, of the vassals of that rich 
abbey were dragged into captivity, 120 houses on its estates were 
burnt, and 5000 head of cattle carried off. After the retreat of 
the Turks from before Vienna, the people of St. Polten found a 
number of deserted children, of whom they kindly took and kept 
charge, without ever discovering their parents. The defence of 
the abbey of Lilienfeld forms a brilliant episode in the history of 
the time. Many of the inhabitants of the adjacent districts, and 
among them a large portion of the gentry, had taken refuge from 
the Tartar cavalry in this place. On the nearer approach, how- 
ever, of the dreaded marauders, the greater part of these fugitives 
continued their retreat, and sought a more assured refuge in Salz- 
burg or the Tyrol. Not so the brave abbot, Matthew Kol- 



126 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. xiii. 

bries. He rallied round him his clergy and vassals, fortified his 
convent, and prepared to defend it to the last. He did a great 
deal more than this ; for though deserted by all but a small body 
of devoted adherents, after repelling several assaults, instead of 
leaving his enemy to rally at leisure, he fell upon him in a series 
of well-planned sallies and ambuscades, which by their success 
elevated the courage of his adherents to the highest pitch of 
daring. Following up these first successes, he fell by surprise 
on a column of the Tartars near Marinzell, destroyed them 
almost to a man, and brought back in triumph 200 rescued 
Christians, a mule load of money, and forty heads of Tartars, 
whose bodies he had left for example exposed on the roads. 
Three Turkish prisoners of distinction were ransomed at from 
2000 to 3000 ducats each. The casual accession of a Bavarian 
officer and five troopers to his small force enabled him to intro- 
. duce into it something of military science and discipline. Mili- 
tary genius was evidently not wanting to the man who, at the 
age of sixty -three, could perform such exploits. Some Polish 
troops, who also joined him, gave him more trouble by their in- 
discipline than assistance by their military experience. With 
this motley band, however, he struck some more severe blows 
on the parties of the enemy ; and by holding Lilienfeld till the 
Yizier was compelled to withdraw his light troops from the 
country, and thus guarding the main pass into Styria, he saved 
that province from all the horrors of Tartar invasion. The 
value of that exemption may be gathered from the calculations 
made by contemporary writers of authority, of the number of 
those who were carried off into slavery from Austria, which 
amounts to 6000 men, 11,000 women, 19,000 girls, and 56,000 
children. Among the girls were 200 of noble extraction. The 
example of the Abbot of Lilienfeld, though eminently conspi- 
cuous, is not the only one which shows how much might have 
been done to check the brave and rapacious, but undisciplined, 
horsemen of the East, if the Austrian gentry had not, in a 
moment of general consternation and depression, emigrated so 
largely to the Tyrol and other places of safety. Many tales are 
related of troops of marauders put to flight by the firm coun- 
tenance of individual men, and even women. No one of these 
stories can, perhaps, be so strictly relied upon as to justify its 



CHAP. XIII.] BY THE TURKS. 127 

insertion in the page of serious history ; and it is certain that in 
other instances the Tartar cavalry, by their skill in horseman- 
ship and individual daring, were found formidable antagonists. 
Troops, however, whose occupation is plunder, and engaged in a 
difficult country, are never safe from such a man as the Abbot of 
Lilienfeld, and a few more such would at least have caused them 
to concentrate their numbers, and to include a far less extent of 
country within their ranges. On the 13th August, the Bavarian 
forces, 13,000 in number, were ferried over the Danube near 
Molk. They were received with salvos of artillery and military 
music from the fortified abbey. The Margrave of Bareuth 
crossed the river on the following day with 6000 men. The 
presence of this respectable force on the right bank of the Danube 
freed the upper provinces from that of the invaders. 



128 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. xiv. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

From the end of July to September 11. 

The corps of Tekeli had meanwhile prosecuted its operations in 
Upper Hungary. As he was approaching Tyrnau, the Duke of 
Lorraine reinforced the citadel of Presburg with some regiments 
of cavalry, and put the remainder of his army in motion across 
the Marchfield. Learning that the town of Presburg was already 
occupied, and the citadel threatened by the adherents of Tekeli, 
and also that 20,000 Turks and 20,000 Hungarians were en- 
camped in the neighbourhood, he pushed on towards the city. 
He succeeded in flinging an additional force into the fortress, 
and, after some resistance, drove the enemy out of the suburbs 
and town. The citizens, excusing their defection on the ground 
of compulsion, renewed their fealty to the Emperor. The ad- 
vanced guard of the Polish army, under Prince Lubomirski, had 
meanwhile arrived, and with their assistance the Duke on the 
following day gained a victory which cleared the left bank of the 
Danube, and re-established the communication with Comorn and 
Raab. The hostile camp fell entirely into the victors' hands. 
The Turks and Tekeli threw mutual blame upon each other. 
To whichever it was due, their united forces, after ravaging the 
Marchfield, were overtaken by Lorraine near Stammerdorf, and 
again completely defeated. The Pacha of Erlau with 1200 men 
were left dead on the field, many more perished in attempting to 
swim the Danube, 22 standards were taken, and a body of 600 
Hungarians deserted to the enemy. Meanwhile the troops of 
the Empire were flocking in from all quarters. The Bavarians 
have been already mentioned. The Elector of Saxony, John 
George III., marched out of Dresden on the 22nd July with 
12,000 men and 18 guns, and reached Crems on the 28th August. 
Sobieski writes to his wife in great admiration of the Saxon 
troops, as well dressed, complete in numbers, and well disci- 



CHAP. XIV.] BY THE TURKS. 129 

plined. " We may say of the Germans what has been said of 
the horse, they do not know their own strength." The King of 
Poland left Cracow early in August. The Emperor had under- 
gone the humiliation of imploring the personal presence of a 
sovereign whose policy and interests he had always thwarted, 
even should he arrive without his army. This homage to his 
military talents was doubtless grateful, but John Sobieski needed 
no stimulus when the Turk was in the field. While the French 
ambassador was exerting all his influence to detain him, and 
writing to Louis XIV. that hb was too corpulent for active 
service, he took leave of his wife, and, after making his will, set 
out, accompanied by his son, a boy sixteen years of age, in ad- 
vance of his army. His march lay through a country exposed 
to the incursions of Tartars and Hungarians, but he performed 
it on horseback with an escort of some 2000 cavalry, and reached 
the head-quarters of Lorraine in safety. He found them at Tuln, 
on the right bank of the river, the force weak in numbers, and 
still employed in the construction of the bridge which the Em- 
peror in his letters had announced as finished. Many of the 
German troops had not yet arrived. Lorraine spake with anxiety 
of the condition of affairs. '• Be of good cheer," replied Sobieski ; 
' which of us at the head of 200,000 men would have allowed 
this bridge to be constructed within five leagues of his camp ? 
The Vizier is a man of no capacity." The Polish army, under 
Field Marshal Jablonowski, reached the bank of the Danube 
opposite Tuln early in September. It amounted to about 26,000 
men of all arms, but with a very small proportion of infantry. 
After passing them in review, the leaders held a council of war, 
in which Lorraine suggested that the march for the relief of the 
city should be directed over the Kahlenberg. The King gave 
an immediate assent, observing, that he had left his royal dignity 
at Warsaw, and was prepared to act with the Duke as with a 
friend and brother. On the other hand, no jealousies would 
seem to have interfered to prevent an immediate and frank ac- 
knowledgment of the authority of Sobieski as Commander-in-chief 
of the assembled forces. It is not to be forgotten that the Duke 
of Lorraine had been competitor with Sobieski for the crow^n of 
Poland. Sobieski's letters contain some graphic details of their 
first meeting, which seems to have passed off at table with mor« 



130 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap, xit 

joviality than was consistent with the ordinary habits of Lorraine, 
who was free from the German vice of drinking, but who on this 
occasion, beginning with the lighter vintage of Moselle, passed 
on to the stronger wines of Hungary. Sobieski describes him as 
modest and taciturn, strongly marked with the small-pox, le nez 
trez aquili?i, et presque en peroquet ; stooping, plain, and negli- 
gent in his attire. Avec tout pa, il napas la mine d^un marchand 
mais d^un homme comme il faut^ et meme d^im homme de dis- 
tinction, C^est un homme avec qui je m^accorderais facilement. 
It was further decided that the Poles should cross the river at 
Tuln and the Germans at Crems, so as to effect their junction at 
the former place on the 5th September. The junction did not 
however take place till the 7th. Three thousand Poles were 
detached towards the March field to keep the Hungarians in 
check. The Christian army now consisted of 85,000 men, 
Austrians, Poles, Bavarians, Saxons, Swabians, and Franconians, 
with 186 pieces of artillery. Of tliis number, some 7000 were 
detached for the occupation of various posts, leaving about 77,000 
effectives for field operations against the Turks. This force, 
small in numbers if we consider the greatness of the stake at 
issue, counted among its leaders four sovereigns and twenty-two 
other princes of sovereign houses. The electoral houses of Ger- 
many were worthily represented by Saxony and Bavaria. John 
George III., Elector of Saxony, had seen much service in the 
cause of Austria, and had been the first of the German princes to 
give a frank adhesion to her cause. Sobieski describes him as 
speaking neither Latin nor French, and little German ; not ad- 
dicted to harangues or compliments, etourdi^ drunken, simple, and 
good-natured. The man thus satirically painted was however a 
sturdy specimen of the German race, and* could deal hard blows 
in the field. Maximilian Emanuel, of Bavaria, conspicuous in after 
years for the misfortunes entailed upon him by his alliance with 
France against Austria, and the principal victim of Marlborough's 
success at Blenheim, came forward now at the age of twenty-one, 
to save from destruction the sovereign who, after rewarding him 
with the hand of a daughter, lived to expel him for awhile from 
his dominions. He had the good sense now to consign the 
conduct of his troops to experienced hands, and served himself 
as a volunteer. Among the others were the Dukes of Sachseu 



CHAP. XIV. J BY THE TURKS. 13 i 

Lauenburg, Eisenach, and Weissenfels, of Brunswick-Liineburg, 
Wirtemberg and Holstein, Pfalzneuburg and Croy, the Mar- 
grave of Baireuth and Louis of Baden afterwards so famous ; 
the Landgrave of Hesse, the Princes of Waldeck, Hohenzollern, 
Anhalt, and Salm ; last and youngest, Eugene of Savoy. The 
Prince of Waldeck commanded the troops of the Circles. 

The literature of modern Europe, rich as it is in the cor- 
respondence of eminent persons of both sexes, perhaps contains no 
collection of letters of such engrossing interest as those written at 
this period by John Sobieski to his wife, which have lately found 
an eminent translator and commentator in the Count Plater. 
The familiar correspondence of such a man as Sobieski, even if 
devoted to ordinary occurrences and insignificant events, would 
derive an interest from the character and fame of the writer 
which few such collections could claim. In the case of these, 
however, the circumstances of the time combine with the cha- 
racter of the man to enhance that interest to the highest degree. 
They are the letters of an absent lover, pledged to punctual and 
familiar correspondence, and consequently rich in minute details. 
They are the military dispatches of one of the greatest soldiers 
who ever lived, penned in moments snatched from hard-earned 
repose, often when the night-lamp of his tent was growing pale 
before the twilight of morning, and dealing with the hourly pro- 
gress of one of the greatest military transactions in history. 
Some passages of these documents escaped at the time, and have 
been quoted by all writers on the subjects concerned, from Vol- 
taire and Madame de Sevigne to the gazette writers of the 
day ; but these passages, principally relating to the great and noto- 
rious result, are not of greater interest, and are of less historical 
value, than the remainder more lately rescued from the obscurity 
of the Polish language which was the medium of his most 
familiar intercourse with his absent wife. It is a singular trait 
of ability in this mischievous woman, especially when we consider 
the habitual distaste of her countrymen and countrywomen for 
the acquisition of foreign languages, that she should have so 
completely mastered the difficulties of a Sclavonic dialect as to 
speak and write it with fluency and correctness. It is embar- 
rassing to quote from these letters, because there is scarcely 
a passage in them which does not present the temptation. The 

K 2 



132 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. xiv. 

series commences from the 29th August, the first evening after 
taking leave of his wife at Cracow. This and the five following 
letters carry him through the fatigues of the march, the tedious 
ceremonies of his reception at Olmutz and other halting-places ; 
and the seventh, of the 9th September, is written from Tuln, the 
great rendezvous, and one of the points of passage for the col- 
lected forces of Poland and Germany. At every step the 
interest thickens ; fresh intelligence is announced of the desperate 
condition of the city ; the figures of men then, or afterwards, 
famous in history, are briefly and graphically introduced to our 
notice ; observations on the busy present, and speculations on the 
doubtful future, are interwoven with lively sketches of character 
and costume. At Tuln commenced the main difficulties of the 
great operation on which the eyes of Europe were concentered, 
difficulties which nothing but the gross negligence of the Turks' 
could have enabled the allies to surmount. The Tartar cavalry, 
properly directed, might alone have rendered impossible the 
three days' march, by forest paths, through a country destitute of 
provisions, and scarcely practicable for artillery or carriages, 
which intervened between the banks of the river and the heio^lits 
of the Kahlenberg. Baggage and commissariat were of necessity 
left behind, in the neighbourhood of Tuln. It was necessary to 
weaken the fighting strength of the army by a strong guard to 
protect these depots from the Tartars, and by heavy escorts for 
the transport of provisions from this base of operation. 

It was hardly to be expected that the heights of the Kahlenberg 
themselves would be found unguarded ; and to explore the con- 
dition of this crowning post, the key to the main operation, was 
in itself a task of the utmost hazard and delicacy. It was per- 
formed on the night of the 10th by the king and the other prin- 
cipal commanders in person, and this service separated him so 
far and so long from his army then struggling up the precipices 
and through the forests behind, that the greatest alarm was 
excited for his safety. The crest of the Kahlenberg, with its 
castle and chapel, were found unoccupied ; but the Turks, too 
late aware of its importance, were moving towards it in the 
course of the 11th, when, by great exertion, the first troops 
which came to hand, five Saxon battalions of the left wing, with 
three guns, were brought up to the summit. The Turks, finding 



CHAP. XIV.] BY THE TURKS. 133 



themselves anticipated, retired without a serious struggle, and the 
Saxon guns opening upon their rear, gave signal to the city of 
its approaching salvation. The king and the other commanders 
rejoined their several corps about mid-day of the llth, and the 
principal difficulties of the march having been now overcome, 
the army was enabled to arrange itself in nearly the order which 
was preserved through the following day of battle.* This ope- 
ration was conducted without disturbance from the enemy, 
except on the extreme left, where General Leslie experienced 
some opposition in the establishment of a battery. The report 
of this skirmish roused Sobieski, not from slumber, which, as he 
states, was rendered unattainable by the thunder of the Turkish 
batteries against the city, but from the occupation of writing a 
long and detailed letter to his wife. Disturbed in this enjoyment, 
the indefatigable man, described by the French ambassador as too 
corpulent to ride, was again in the saddle at three a.m. He 
appears to have ridden along the whole position, from his tent on 
the extreme right to the Leopoldsberg on the left. This 
exertion had the advantage of bringing him once more into per- 
sonal communication with Lorraine before that final issue which 
took place on the following day, contrary indeed to the expecta- 
tion or intention of either, for neither contemplated at this 
moment the possibility of bringing so vast an operation as the 
relief of the city within the compass of a single day. 

Nothing seems to have given Sobieski so much annoyance at this 
period as the non-appearance of some Cossack levies, which his 
agents had been despatched to raise. He writes of them in their 
absence in a strain which might have been used by a Russian com- 
mander of our own day, and which shows that the admirable 
qualities of the real Cossack for the duty of light troops, especially 
against the Turk, had fully displayed themselves in the seventeenth 
century. It is certain that down to the latest period, the Vizier 
had no belief, or even suspicion, that Sobieski had taken the field 
in person, or that any strong Polish force had joined the army. 
The reported appearance of Polish troops was accounted for by 
the known arrival of Lubomirski's partisan corps. 

The muster-roll of the Turkish army found in the tent of the 
Vizier gives in round numbers a total of 160,000 men, and histo- 
* See Appendix 



134 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. xiv. 

rians have been ready enough to adopt a cypher, which would 
give a difference of 80,000 men as against the victorious party. 
As this document, however, includes all detachments and garri- 
sons, and also many commanders and men who were certainly no 
longer in existence, the Pacha of Erlau, for instance, who, with 
most of his troops, had perished, as has been related, in the affair 
of Stammersdorf, it is as needless to dwell upon the fallacy of 
such an assumption of numbers, as it would be difficult to arrive 
at anything like accuracy with any other. If we accept the state- 
ment of Kantemir, that, on the night before the battle, nearly a 
fourth of the Turkish army disbanded itself, we can hardly calcu- 
late the force remaining in the camp at more than 100,000, for 
whom, exhausted and dispirited as they were, 80,000 untouched 
regular troops were more than an equal match. 

When the advance of the Christian army became no longer 
doubtful, the Vizier called his Pachas about him to deliberate 
upon the mode in which to meet the impending attack. The 
aged Pacha of Pesth, who has been mentioned as adverse from 
the first to the march upon Vienna, advised the Vizier to raise 
the siege without delay, to collect the whole army, and, cutting 
down the neighbouring forests, to palisade and entrench them- 
selves and abide the attack. On the repulse of the first onset, to 
launch the cavalry on both flanks of the enemy, and thus decide 
his defeat. The majority of the council was in favour of this 
proposal. The Vizier was obstinate in rejecting it, alleging, 
not unjustly, that if the siege were once raised, the city would 
instantly avail itself of the opportunity to repair its defences, and 
put itself into condition to defy a renewed attempt. It would be 
difficult, if the Janissaries were once withdrawn from the trenches, 
to persuade them to return to their toil, even after the achieve- 
ment of a victory in the field. His opinion then was that a suffi- 
cient force should be left in the approaches to carry on the 
siege operations without interruption, and that the remainder 
should advance against the enemy, whose inferior numbers would 
be easily crushed. The Pachas made some further remon- 
strances, but were forced to give way to the unlimited authority 
of" their chief. On the 11th September all the Turkish troops in 
the Leopoldstadt were withdrawn, and the greater part of the 
cavalry were moved forward towards the Kahlenberg, near the 



CHAP. XIV.] BY THE TURKS. 135 

base of which, and on the Wienerberg-, they threw up entrench- 
ments ; and, disposing themselves in the shape of a crescent, 
they awaited the appearance of the Imperialists. Between Wein- 
haus and Gerstorf are still to be seen the traces of a considerable 
work, which bears the name of the Turkenschauz, the site of one of 
their principal batteries. So long previous as the 9th September, 
the Vizier, in his first alarm at the approach of the enemy, had 
determined to collect his force on the Wienerberg, and a field- 
tent had been pitched for him near the so-called Spinnerkreuz. 
On the following day, however, he changed his intention and 
plan, and moving the main portion of his force towards the 
Kahlenberg, drew it up upon the heights between Grinzing and 
Heiligenstadt. On the evening of the same day, the 10th, the 
advanced guard of the Christian army arrived on the Kahlenberg, 
and the first sound of its guns, as above described, was heard in 
Vienna, as they opened from the heights on the columns of the 
Turks. The effect was one of mingled joy and anxiety. The 
issue of the struggle was evidently at hand, but that issue was 
still uncertain, and the night was one of agonising suspense. The 
population not immediately employed in military duty, was di- 
vided through the day between the churches and the roofs of towers 
and houses ; the first engaged in earnest supplication to Heaven, 
the latter in surveying the movements of the Turkish camp, and 
watching for the first gleam of the Christian weapons as they 
issued from the wooded heights. The commandant, as evening 
closed in, despatched a messenger, vi^ho swam the Danube with a 
letter for the Duke of Lorraine. Its words were few. '' No 
time to be lost ! — no time indeed to be lost !" This message was 
acknowledged by a cluster of rockets from Hermansdorf. Orders 
were now issued by Count Stahremberg to all the troops, regular 
and irregular, to hold themselves in readiness for a sally during 
the expected battle of the morrow, or for joining the Christian 
army, and driving the Turks out of the approaches. The night 
of the 11th of September closed in upon this troubled scene. 
The man whose doom is sealed will often sleep till morning calls 
him to the scaffold. Such heavy sleep as his, the offspring of 
nervous excitement and exhaustion, perhaps, was granted to the 
citizen of Vienna ; but even this may be doubted, for the criminal 
is assured of his fate. The doom of Vienna was yet uncertain. 



136 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. xv. 



CHAPTER XV. 



September 12. 



At sunrise of the 12th September, the crest of the Kahlejiberg 
was concealed by one of those autumnal mists which give pro- 
mise of a genial, perhaps a sultry day, and which, clinging to the 
wooded flanks of the acclivity, grew denser as it descended, till it 
rested heavily on the shores and the stream itself of the river below. 
From that summit the usual fiery signals of distress had been 
watched through the night by many an eye as they rose inces- 
santly from the tower of St. Stephen, and now the fretted spire 
of that edifice, so long the target of the ineffectual fire of the 
Turkish artillerists, was faintly distinguished rising from a sea 
of mist. As the hour wore on, and the exhalation dispersed, a 
scene was disclosed which must have made those who witnessed 
it from the Kahlenberg tighten their saddle-girths or look to 
their priming. A practised eye glancing over the fortifications 
of the city could discern from the Burg to the Scottish gate an 
interruption of their continuity, a shapeless interval of rubbish 
and of ruin, which seemed as if a battalion might enter it 
abreast. In face of this desolation a labyrinth of lines extended 
itself, differing in design from the rectilinear zigzag of a piodern 
approach, and formed of short curves overlapping each other, to 
use a comparison of some writers of the tinfe, like the scales of 
a fish. In these, the Turkish lines, the miner yet crawled to his 
task, and the storming parties were still arrayed by order of the 
Vizier, ready for a renewal of the assault so often repeated in 
vain. The camp behind had been evacuated by the fighting men ; 
the horse-tails had been plucked from before the tents of the 
Pachas, but their harems still tenanted the canvass city ; masses of 
Christian captives; awaited there their doom in chains ; camels and 
drivers and camp followers still peopled the long streets of 
tents in all the confusion of fear and suspense. Nearer to the 



CHAP. XV.] BY THE TURKS. 137 

base of the hilly range of the Kahlenberg and the Leopold sberg, 
the still imposing numbers of the Turkish army were drawn up 
in battle array ready to dispute the egress of the Christian 
columns from the passes, and prevent their deployment on the 
plain. To the westward, on the reverse flank of the range, the 
Christian troops might be seen toiling up the ascent. As they 
drew up on the crest of the Leopoldsberg they formed a half 
circle round the chapel of the Margrave, and when the bell for 
matins tolled, the clang of arms and the noises of the march 
were silenced. On a space kept clear round the chapel a 
standard with a white cross on a red ground was unfurled, as if 
to bid defiance to the blood red flag planted in front of the tent 
of Kara Mustapha. One shout of acclamation and defiance 
broke out from the modern crusaders as this emblem of a holy 
war was displayed, and all again was hushed as the gates of the 
castle were flung open, and a procession of the Princes of the 
Empire and the other leaders of the Christian host moved for- 
ward to the chapel. It was headed by one whose tonsured crown 
and venerable beard betokened the monastic profession. The 
soldiers crossed themselves as he passed, and knelt to receive the 
blessing which he gave them with outstretched hands. This was 
the famous Capuchin Marco Aviano, friend and confessor to the 
Emperor, whose acknowledged piety and exemplary life had 
earned for him the general reputation of prophetic inspiration. 
He had been the inseparable companion of the Christian army in 
its hours of diflftculty and danger, and was now here to assist at 
the consummation of his prayers for its success. Among the 
stately warriors who composed his train, three principally at- 
tracted the gaze of the curious. The first in rank and station 
was a man somewhat past the prime of life, strong limbed and of 
imposing stature, but quick and lively in speech and gesture, his 
head partly shaved in the fashion of his semi- Eastern country, 
his hair, eyes, and beard, dark-coloured. His majestic bearing 
bespoke the soldier king, the scourge and dread of the Moslem, the 
conqueror of Choczim, John Sobieski. His own attire is said to 
have been plain, but we gather from his letters that in his retinue 
he displayed a Sclavonic taste for magnificence which strongly 
contrasted with the economial arrangements of Lorraine, and even 
of the two Electors. Painters, and others studious of accuracy, 



138 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. xv. 

may be glad to know that on this occasion the colour of his dress 
was sky blue, and that he rode a bay horse. An attendant bearing 
a shield, with his arms emblazoned, always preceded him, and his 
place in battle was marked by another who carried a plume on 
his lance point, a signal more conspicuous, though less insepar- 
able, than the famous white plume of Henry lY. On his lei't 
was his youthful son Prince James, armed with a breastplate 
and helmet, and, in addition to an ordinary sword, with a short 
and broad -bladed sabre, a national weapon of former ages ; on 
his riglit was the illustrious and heroic ancestor of the present 
reigning house of Austria, Charles of Lorraine. Behind these 
moved many of the principal members of those sovereign houses 
of Germany whose names and titles have been already specified. 
At the side of Louis of Baden walked a youth of slender frame 
and moderate stature, but with that intelligence in his eye which 
pierced in after years the cloud of many a doubtful field, and swayed 
the fortunes of empires. This was the young Eugene of Savoy, 
who drew his maiden sword in the quarrel in which his brother 
had lately perished. The service of high mass was performed in 
the chapel by Aviano, the King assisting at the altar, while the 
distant thunder of the Turkish batteries formed strange accom- 
paniment to the Christian choir. The Princes then received the 
sacrament, and the religious ceremony was closed by a general 
benediction of the troops by Aviano, The King then stepped 
forward and conferred knighthood on his son, with the usual 
ceremonies, commending to him as an example for his future 
course the great commander then present, the Duke of Lorraine. 
He then addressed his troops in their own language to the 
following effect : — " Warriors and friends ! Yonder in the plain 
are our enemies, in numbers greater indeed than at Choczim, 
where we trod them under foot. We have to fight them on a 
foreign soil, but we fight for our own country, and under the 
walls of Vienna we are defending those of Warsaw and Cracow. 
We have to save to-day, not a single city, but the whole of 
Christendom, of which that city of Vienna is the bulwark. The 
war is a holy one. There is a blessing on our arms, and a crown 
of glory for him who falls. You fight not for your earthly 
sovereign, but for the King of kings. His power has led you 
unopposed up the diflftcult access to these heights, and has thus 



CHAP. XV.] BY THE TURKS. 139 

placed half the victory in your hands. The infidels see you now- 
above their heads ; and with hopes blasted and courage depressed, 
are creeping among valleys destined for their graves. I have but 
one command to give, — follow me. The time is come for the 
young to win their spurs." Military music and the shouts of 
thousands greeted this pertinent harangue, and as it closed, five 
cannon shots gave the signal for the general advance. A sharp 
fire of musketry from the small hamlet of Kahlenberg near 
Nussdorf soon announced that the left wing, under the immediate 
command of the Duke of Lorraine, had felt the enemy, and it 
increased as his attack developed itself towards Heiligenstadt and 
Dobling. The centre, commanded by the Elector of Bavaria 
and the Prince of Waldeck, moved upon Wahring and Weinhaus. 
The right wing, under the King of Poland, issued from the 
woods near Dornbach. There is no doubt that the general 
disposal of the confederated forces was entirely arranged by the 
King. His rank alone would have entitled him to a nominal 
precedency, which, even in the case of an ordinary sovereign, it 
would have been convenient to admit ; for, previously to his 
arrival in the camp, disputes had already arisen between Saxony 
and Bavaria, and Vienna might have been taken twice over 
before such disputes between German sovereigns could have been 
settled. The respect however in which John Sobieski's military 
talents were held, his vast experience of the Turkish manner of 
lighting, and the dread which his presence was known to inspire 
amongst that people, were such as to obtain a ready and real 
acquiescence in his slightest suggestions, so long as the difficulty 
lasted and the danger w^as imminent. His order of battle was a 
deep one. To avoid so great an extension of front as would have 
compelled him to throw his right flank beyond the little river 
Wien instead of keeping that stream on his right, he adopted a 
formation in three lines, the third acting as a reserve. The 
troops w^ere strictly directed to preserve their ranks on the 
approach of the enemy, and halt to receive his fire and return 
their own ; then to advance steadily, and make good the ground 
so gained — the infantry gradually developing itself to the right 
and left, and allowing the cavalry to fill up the intervals, and 
take its full share in the further advance, charging as oppor- 
tunity should offer. 



140 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. xv. 

The first operation of Kara Mustapha was worthy of one in 
whom the cruelty was united with the ignorance of the savage — 
it was the slaughter of the defenceless captives of all ages and 
either sex, with whom, to the number it is said of 30,000, his 
camp was crowded. It was obeyed to the letter; and even the 
inmates of the soldiers' harems, women far different in morals 
from the courtezans of the Christian camp, are said to have 
perished. The command of the right wing, which occupied 
strong and broken ground opposite the Duke of Lorraine, was 
intrusted to the Pacha of Mesopotamia. The Vizier himself 
commanded in the centre opposite AYahring, and the left wing 
opposite Hernals was commanded by the old Pacha of Pesth. 
The cavalry were in advance towards the base of the Kahlenberg. 
The hollow ways between Nussdorf and Heiligenstadt were 
strongly entrenched and fiercely defended. It was, as has been 
noticed, the original intention of the king to content himself on 
this day with the descent of the acclivity and the establishment 
of the army in favourable order and position for a general action 
on the morrow, and he had agreed upon this course with Lor- 
raine, but the fierceness of the struggle on the left of the allies 
drew his forces gradually to its support, and brought on a more 
immediate decision. To descend the wooded acclivities without 
deranging the scientific order of battle devised and adopted was 
an operation only less tedious and difficult than the ascent of the 
preceding days, and it was to be performed in the presence of an 
enemy for courage and numbers not to be despised. The left 
wing was engaged for some hours before the Bavarians in the 
centre or the Poles on the right could deploy. The defence of 
the broken ground near Nussdorf and Heiligenstadt on the part 
of the Turks was obstinate, but having occupied in haste and too 
late their present position at the foot of tlie heights, they had not 
brought up their artillery, and their dismounted cavalry, of which 
the troops here engaged were principally composed, were not a 
match for the Imperialists, who drove the enemy steadily before 
them from ravine to ravine, and carried the two villages. It is 
probable that Lorraine, adhering to the original scheme of action, 
might have contented himself with this success for the day, and 
it is not certain at what period of the action a contrary and 
bolder determination first suggested itself to either the King or 



CHAP. XV.] BY THE TURKS. 141 

himself. The Duke is said to have consulted at a critical period 
the Saxon Field-Marshal Geltz, who, observing the progress of 
the Bavarians and Poles towards the centre and right, gave it 
for his opinion that the Duke might sleep that night if he would 
in Vienna. Eugene of Savoy was employed during the action 
in conveying a message from Lorraine to the King. We may 
indulge ourselves witli the conjecture that he was charged with 
this decision, one worthy of such a messenger. Accounts differ 
as to the hour at which the action became general by the deploy- 
ment of the Bavarians and Poles. Some put it as late as 
two P.M. It is said, , however, that towards eleven o'clock the 
Imperialists on the left were slackening their advance to make 
good the ground they had gained, and to wait for the appearance 
of their friends, when the gilded cuirasses of the Polish cavalry 
flashed out from the defiles of the Wenersberg, and the shout of 
^'Live Sobieski" ran along the lines. The heat was oppressive, 
and the King halted and dismounted his people for a hasty repast. 
This concluded, the whole line advanced, and the battle soon 
raged in every part of an amphitheatre admirably adapted by 
nature for such a transaction. The Turks had profited by the 
lull to bring up heavy reinforcements, and the Vizier flung 
himself on the Poles in very superior numbers. In an early 
part of the encounter*, a body of Polish Hulans compromised 
itself by a rash advance, and was for a time surrounded. It was 
extricated by the prompt and judicious assistance of Waldeck and 
his Bavarians, but lost many officers of distinction, and among 
them, a Potocki, the treasurer Modrjewski, and the Colonel 
Ahasuerus. The second line was brought up by Sobieski, and 
the Turks were driven before their desperate valour through 
ravines and villages, and the fortified position of Hernalsback, 
upon the glacis of their camp. The city of tents with all its 
treasures was almost within their grasp ; but it is said that ever) 
with such a spectacle before him, Sobieski's caution all but 
induced him to pause till the morrow. The approach to the 
camp was protected by a ravine, the ground in front was undu- 
lating and strengthened with works, and occupied by a strong 
force and a powerful artillery. The King was in face of the 
centre of this position ; his right covered by Jablanowski against 
the attacks of the Tartar cavalry. It was five o'clock ; his 



U2 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. xv. 

infantry was not yet at hand ; the only artillery which had kept 
pace with the speed of his advance consisted of two or three 
light pieces which the veteran commander of his artillery, Kouski, 
had brought up by force of arm and levers. Sobieski pointed these 
at the field tent of crimson silk, from which the Yizier was giving 
his orders. The ammunition carriages were, however, far behind, 
and a few charges carried by hand were soon exhausted. A 
French officer, it is said, rammed home the last cartridge with 
his gloves, his wig, and a packet of French newspapers. 

At this moment of hesitation the infantry came up. They 
were led by the Count Maligniz, the King's brother-in-law. 
against a height which commanded the quarters of the Vizier. 
The attack was successful, and the King determined on the 
instant to pursue his fortune. As he led his troops in a direct 
line for the Vizier's tent, his terrible presence was recognized by 
the infidel. " By Allah the King is really among us," exclaimed 
the Khan of the Crimea, Selim Gieray. The mass retreated in 
confusion. Those who awaited the attack went down before 
those lances of the Polish cavalry of which it was said by a 
Polish noble to one of their kings, that if the heavens were to 
fall they would sustain them on their points. The Pachas of 
Aleppo and Silistria perished in the fray. The panic became 
universal and the rout complete. The Vizier, hurried along 
with the stream, weeping and cursing by turns — had neither time 
to deliberate nor power to command. By six o'clock his gor- 
geous tent was in possession of Sobieski. His charger, too 
heavily caparisoned for rapid flight, was still held by a slave at 
the entrance. One of the golden stirrups was instantly sent off 
by the conqueror to the Queen as a token of j:he defeat and flight 
of its late owner. On the left, meanwhile, the progress of Lor- 
faine, though less rapid from the difficulties of the ground and 
the tenacity of the resistance, had been equally victorious. The 
great Turkish redoubt, of which the traces yet remain, held out 
against repeated assaults till near five o'clock, when Louis of 
Baden, at the head of a regiment of Saxon dragoons, dismounted 
for the purpose, and two Austrian regiments of infantry, carried 
the work. The Turks now gave way at every point, and poured 
into their camp in the wildest confusion. The Margrave Louis, 
at the head of a squadron of dragoons, was the first to open a 



CHAP. XV.] BY THE TURKS. 143 

communication with the city from the counterscarp of the Scot- 
tish gate. Stahremberg ordered an immediate sally against the 
approaches of the enemy, from which they had maintained through 
the day as heavy a fire as on any previous day of the siege, though 
no assault had been attempted by the strong body of Janissaries 
left in them for that purpose. These men, abandoned now with- 
out orders to their fate, endeavoured to turn the guns of the 
batteries upon the Imperialists. The attempt, however, in the 
general confusion which ensued, was vain, and the main body of 
the Janissaries, unable or unwilling to retreat, was cut to pieces 
in the course of the night. The camp meanwhile fell into the 
undisputed possession of the Poles. 

Previous precaution, or a few moments' halt at St. Ulric, enabled 
the Yizier to save the sacred standard of the Prophet. One of the 
many standards captured was sent by Sobieski to the Pope under 
the supposition that it was the famous Palladium in question, 
but this proved to be a mistake. It is probable also that the 
mass of the treasure, which is supposed to have been very great 
in the Vizier's exchequer, had been removed ; and we learn from 
the King of Poland's letters that considerable sums of coin were 
hastily divided among the Vizier's attendants at the last moment, 
and carried oif. No great amount of coin or bullion was found 
in the tents. Every other item in the long catalogue of the 
treasures and luxuries which the Vizier had accumulated round 
his person fell into the hands of the Poles. The Turks con- 
tinued their flight without intermission in the direction of Raab, 
where the force still employed in the blockade of that fortress 
afforded them a rallying point. It was, however, impossible for 
the Christian leaders to assure themselves at so late an hour of 
the full extent of the enemy's discomfiture, or even to consider 
themselves secure against a night attack. Great exertions were 
therefore made both by the King and the Duke to keep their 
troops well in hand through the night. The King, whose advance 
had led him to the very centre of the camp, found it necessary 
to resort to threats of summary and capital punishment to pre- 
vent his whole army from dispersing itself at once to gather the 
rich harvest of the Turkish tents. These threats were, as may 
be imagined, only partially effectual. Tents guarded in froiit 



144 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. xv. 

were cut open from behind, and discipline as usual gave way 
before the attraction of spoil. The Germans had no such im- 
mediate opportunities for plunder. Two regiments only of 
Austrian dragoons were despatched in pursuit as far as the Fischa 
stream. The slaughter of this great battle was not great in pro- 
portion to the numbers engaged and the results obtained. The 
loss of the Turks lias been computed at 25,000 men. Among 
these was that body of Janissaries, who were forgotten, and left 
without orders in the trenches, and were cut to pieces during 
the night. The King describes the Turks as defending them- 
selves desperately even in full flight. In this point of view, he 
says, they made the finest retreat in the world. That of the 
Christians has been stated at 1000 killed and 3000 wounded, 
which is probably far less than the truth, for the Poles alone lost 
100 officers, among them some of their first nobles. In the 
centre the loss of the Bavarians was probably trifling, but on the 
left the struggle was long and severe. A Prince of Croy fell 
here in the early part of the action. In the Vizier's encamp- 
ment was found the Polish envoy Proski, who, from the period 
of his sovereign's junction with Austria, had been kept in fetters, 
under constant menace of the sabre or the bowstring, and now 
owed his life and liberation to the confusion of the moment. 
Kunitz also, an agent in Caprara's suite, who had been detained 
in the Turkish camp, and had found means to send occasional in- 
telligence to Stahremberg, escaped in a Turkish disguise during 
the action. A Polish writer, Pubinkoski, gives a rough list of 
the artillery and its appurtenances abandoned in the lines : — 60 
guns of 48 lbs., 60 of 24 lbs., 150 of various lesser calibre, 40 mor- 
tars, 9000 ammunition waggons, 100,000 oxen, 25,000 tents, 
1,000,000 lbs. of powder. To this may be'added 10,000 camels, 
5000 oxen, mules, sheep, &c., and immense stores of other provi- 
sion. Among those accidental results of events which the political 
economist and the philosopher loves to notice, is the fact that the 
popular use of coffee in Germany is to be dated from this period, 
and is due to the plunder of the Turkish camp. Stahremberg's 
brave and faithful messenger, Kolschitzki, was rewarded by per- 
mission to set up the first coffee-house in Vienna. The head of 
the corporation of coffee providers is bound to this day to have 



CHAP. XV.] BY THE TURKS. 145 

in his house a portrait of this patriarch of his profession.* 
Another inventory of the siege-stores actually brought into the 
arsenal of Vienna shows a considerable amount, as well as variety 
of articles, but can give but an imperfect notion of the vast pro- 
vision accumulated, as the army authorities could but glean after 
the plunderers of the three first days. The King writes to his 
wife that the quantity of ammunition saved was at most a thircf 
of the whole, and says that the continual explosions in the camp 
were like the last judgment. His letters give some very amus- • 
ing details of that portion of the spoils of the Vizier's tent which 
he contrived to rescue for his own share from the fangs of his 
officers. They illustrate also the character of the man whose 
penetralia were thus rudely exposed to investigation, and show 
that Kara Mustapha had superadded every description of refine- 
ment to the simpler sensuality of the East. Tissues and carpets 
and furs are natural appendages of Oriental rank and wealth, 
and jewelled arms and quivers, studded with rubies and pearls, 
were equally consistent with his functions as commander of the 
armies of the faithful. Baths, fountains, a rabbit warren, and a 
menagerie, were found within the encampment. A parrot took 
wing and foiled the pursuit of the soldiers. An ostrich had been 
beheaded by the Vizier's own hand, as if it had been a woman of 
the harem, to prevent its falling into Christian hands. This 
rarity had been taken from the Imperial Menagerie at the 
Favorita, where the King mentions having found a famished 
lioness and a small body of Janissaries, who had been left behind 
at that post, and still held out some days after the action. The 
Janissaries surrendered to the personal summons of the King. 
Their lives were spared, and the lioness fed by order of the good- 
natured conqueror. ''The Vizier," writes the King," is a 
galant homme^ and has made us fine presents : everything in par- 
ticular which came near his person is of the most mignon and 
refined description. Father Louis will have reason to rejoice, 

* The first coffee-house in Europe was established in Constantinople in 
1551.^ A century later, in 1652, a Greek established one in London. The 
first in France was at Marseilles in 1671, in Paris the following year. In 
Germany that of Kolschitzki was the first, the second was opened at Leipzic 
i.i 1694. In 1700 Vienna counted four, in 1737 eleven. In the city and 
suburbs there are now one hundred. 



146 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, ' [chap. xv. 

for I have in my possession the medicine chest of the Vizier. 
Among its contents are oils, and gums, and balms, which Pe- 
covini* is never tired of admiring. Among other things we 
have found some rare fishes called Eperlans de mer. Informez- 
vous-en^ mon cceur^ chez le Pere Louis ; ce doit etre une chose 
precieuse pour rechauffer les entraillesy Among the treasures 
of the Yizier, diamonds were found in great profusion ; many, set 
in girdles and otherwise, fell into the hands of the King, and 
many more carried off by the officers and soldiers. The King re- 
marks that they were not used for ornament by the Turks of his 
day, and conjectures that they were destined to adorn the ladies 
of Vienna when transferred to the harems of the Vizier and his 
Pachas. ♦ 

Among other trophies of interest, Roman Catholic historians 
have particularized an oaken cross six ells in height, remarkable 
from the fact that in the camp of the infidel it was set up for the 
daily celebration of mass by one of their Christian allies, Ser- 
vanus Kantacuzenos, Prince of Wallachia. A chapel was built 
for it in the so-called Gatterholz, near Schonbrunn, on the spot 
where it had thus braved the scoffs of the Moslem. It was 
stolen thence in 1785. 

As far as a considerable lapse of intervening years permits us 
to decide, this great action appears to have been planned with 
surpassing judgment, and conducted with that steady valour and 
perseverance on the part both of officers and men, to give scope 
and effect to which all rules of war were invented, and without 
which these rules are useless. History presents few instances in 
which an extensive operation has been conducted with such 
cordial concert between bodies of different nations commanded in 
several cases by their respective sovereigns, and in which jea- 
lousies of precedence and professional rivalries appear to have 
been so completely laid aside during the action. The only 
instance of any apparent deficiency in this respect is that of 
a refusal of the Prince of Waldeck to support an attack directed 
by the Duke of Lorraine ; but even in this case there is every 
reason to suppose that he considered it to involve a departure 
from the earnest injunctions of the chief in command, the King, 
who had directed him to keep his troops in hand for the support 
* The King's Italian physician. 



CHAP. XV.] BY THE TURKS. 147 

of the right wing. AYhen the discomfiture of the Polish cavalr}^ 
had compromised the safety of that wing, and with it the fate of 
the battle, we find the German troops, probably the Bavarians, 
prompt and efficient to the rescue ; and on the left, Saxons, in- 
termingled with Austrians, fought together, as if under one 
common banner. The stout elector himself was in the thickest 
of the fray. He is said to have been splashed with Turkish 
blood so as scarcely to be recognised. With the exception of 
tiie first somewhat rash attack of the Poles, there is no appear- 
ance of any indulgence of that untempered enthusiasm which the 
occasion might have excused. Order and steadiness seem to 
have pervaded the whole area of the Christian operations. 
Attacks were everywhere duly supported, failures retrieved, 
and obstacles of ground successively overcome, in a manner 
which showed a grave consciousness of the magnitude of the 
stake at issue. 



148 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. xvi. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

September 13. 

At sunrise of the 13th the Viennese rushed forth in crowds to 
taste the first sweets of their liberation from a two months' im- 
prisonment. The only gate yet open, the Stuben, was soon 
clogged with the multitude, and the greater number clambered 
over the rubbish of the breaches, eager to gratify in the Turkish 
camp their curiosity, or their rapacity, or both. With respect to 
the more transportable articles of value, the Pole had been 
before them ; but in the article of provisions there was yet much 
for hungry men to glean. Prices rapidly fell, and superfluity 
succeeded to starvation. 

Among those who sought the camp with other purposes than 
plunder or curiosity, was the good Bishop Kollonitsch. His in- 
exhaustible benevolence found employment there in collecting and 
saving some 500 infants, whose mothers, many of them, as is sup- 
posed, Turkish women, had perished by the swords of their ruth- 
less masters. The King mentions one instance of a beautiful 
child whom he saw lying with its skull cloven; but in general 
even Turkish inhumanity had shrunk from the task of child- 
murder. These, with many half-murdered mothers and fc^ome 
Christian adult survivors of the massacre, the Bishop transported 
to the city in carriages, at his own cost, and took measures for the 
future support and education of the infants thus rescued. Popes 
may spare themselves the trouble of the forms, the ceremonies, 
and the intrigues necessary for adding such names as that of 
Kollonitsch to the list of saints in the Romish calendar: the 
recital of these actions puts the Devil's advocate out of court, 
and the simple record, though traced by a Protestant pen, is their 
best canonization. Another worthy member of the church, the 
Father Aviano, had recently performed a service for which the 
Duke of Lorraine and the army had doubtless reason to thank 



CKAP. XVI.] BY THE TURKS. 149 

him. As confessor to the Emperor he had used his influence to 
prevent the latter from embarrassing the army with his presence 
at Crems, and distracting men and officers from their duty by 
the etiquettes and ceremonies which that presence would have 
inflicted, and the intrigues which it would have fostered. On 
the news, however, of the victory, the Emperor had dropped 
down the river as far as Durrenstein, and thither the Duke of 
Lorraine despatched the Count Auersperg with the details of the 
late occurrences. At ten a.m. of the 13th, the Commandant 
Stahremberg issued forth from the walls he had so stoutly 
defended to visit the camp and exchange congratulations with 
the leaders of the liberating army. On this morning, too, the 
Duke of Lorraine and the Elector of S^fexony met with the King 
of Poland for the first time since the mass of the Kahlenberg. 
The meeting between all these worthies had every appearance, in 
the first instance, of cordiality. They perambulated the camp 
and the approaches together amid the acclamations of the troops ; 
but when they entered the town, the King had the shrewdness 
soon to perceive that, though the gratitude of the people was as 
warm as the cordial and kindly nature of the Viennese could make 
it, its full expression was checked by authority. In two churches 
which he entered the people pressed to kiss his hand ; but when 
a few voices uttered the vivat, which had evidently been forbidden 
by the police, he recognised at once in the clouded mien of the 
Austrian authorities that jealousy and ingratitude which proved 
afterwards the only guerdon of his vast services. At an angle of 
the wall between the Burg and Scottish gates, the King, wearied 
by the heat of the day, rested for awhile ; a stone, with his name 
inscribed, marked the spot till the year 1809, when the French 
engineers blew up the rampart. In one of the above-mentioned 
churches, that of the Augustines, a grand Te Deum was sung. 
The Abbe Coyer remarks that the magistracy were absent from 
this ceremony, which perhaps explains a passage in a letter of the 
Kin^, in which he says : — '' I perceive that Stahremberg is not on 
a good understanding with the magistrates of the city." The 
sermon was preached from the famous text — " There was a man 
sent from God, and his name was John" — a happy plagiarism 
from the quotation of Scripture by Pope Pius Y. on the occa- 
sion of the victory of Lepanto. The service concluded, 300 



150 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. xvi. 

cannon shots from the ramparts spread wide the intelligence of 
the relief of the city — no superfluous announcement ; for in 
Wiener Neustadt and other places the trembling inhabitants had 
drawn a contrary conclusion from the sudden cessation of the 
firing, and thought the city lost. The King, after dining with 
the commandant, only delayed his departure to hold a long dis- 
course with a man of much accomplishment, the court inter- 
preter, Meninski, whose conversation had probably more charms 
for him than that of the dull notabilities by whom he was sur- 
rounded» He was himself a good linguist, and a proficient in the 
Turkish language. This over, he hastened to quit the scene of 
cold civilities for the camp. He was escorted to the gates by the 
populace. It maybe mentioned that during the dinner an alarm 
was raised that the Turks had rallied, and were advancing. The 
King desired his officers present to leave the feast and mount, 
and was doubtless preparing to follow, when they returned with 
assurance of the falsehood of the report. This circumstance is 
mentioned in a very simple and detailed diary of the siege by the 
Doctor of Laws, Nicholas Hocke, one of the most curious of the 
many contemporary publications. The electors of Saxony and 
Bavaria appear to have been exempt from any share of the 
feeling of jealousy manifested by Austria. Both in the first hour 
of enthusiasm offered to accompany the King to the end of the 
world. The former indeed soon found his appetite for a Hun- 
garian campaign subside, and shortly withdrew with his army to 
his electoral dominions. The younger Bavarian thought fit to 
pass a longer apprenticeship under so great a master in the art of 
war. The Duke of Lorraine had little exercise of his own dis- 
cretion ; he knew too well by what tenure tlie command of the 
army of Austria was held to do otherwise than reflect the livid 
colour of the spirit in which the hereditary sovereign of the 
House of Hapsburg contemplated the elective King of Poland. 
The King's letters are full of complaints of the unworthy treat- 
ment which he daily received from the Duke and his subordi- 
nates ; but we may charitably ascribe such mean conduct on the 
part of so great a commander to influence from above. In an 
early letter the King describes him by report as speaking little, 
and timidly, from the constant dread of infringing on the instruc- 
tions of the court. Some jealous feeling was doubtless excited, 



CHAP. XVI.] BY THE TURKS. 151 

and might be excused by the fact that the chances of battle had 
given the Polish sovereign and his army prior and exclusive pos- 
session of the spoils. 

The King, immediately on his return to his quarters, directed a 
removal of them in advance. Some of his cavalry indeed were 
already on the track of the enemy, killing and taking prisoners 
in great numbers. There were cogent reasons, both political as 
well as military, for his removing himself as soon as possible from 
the immediate neighbourhood of Vienna. The heat of the au- 
tumnal season had made the camp and its environs one vast char- 
nel, swarming with flies and vermin. This circumstance had 
caused the Duke of Lorraine to transfer his quarters from Ebers- 
dorf to Mansdorf, and would alone have induced the King to 
follow such example. He was however also aware that his pre- 
sence at Vienna w^as an obstacle to the expected entrance of the 
Emperor, who shrunk from any public acknowledgment of the 
services which had saved his crown from danger and his capital 
from destruction, at the expense of the most trifling infringement 
of etiquette, or the momentary concession of a point of w^hich he 
was peculiarly tenacious. The practice, as regarded the reception 
of crowned heads in general, offered no difficulty. It w^as not 
derogatory to the Imperial dignity in French phraseology to give 
them the right ; but the claim of an elective monarch to this dis- 
tinction had always been disputed by Austria. " Je suis fort aise," 
writes the King, " d'eviter toutes ces ceremonies." He moved 
to the neighbourhood of Schwechat in the first instance. He 
writes on the l7th from Schonau, some fifteen miles from Vienna, 
on the road to Presburg, describing the interview which, after 
the removal of difficulties, did take place with the Emperor. The 
latter, having ascertained the departure of the King, landed at 
Nussdorf on the 19th, where he was received by the princes and 
other commanders of the German troops. After inspecting the 
camp and defences, he attended a solem.n thanksgiving in the 
cathedral, at which the bishop Kollonitsch presided, and re- 
viewed and thanked the burgher guard and free companies, &c. 
who lined the streets. On the 15th he reviewed the Bavarian 
forces near St. Marx, and afterwards took heart of grace and 
accomplished the dreaded interview with the King at Schwechat. 
That it ever took place at all was due, however, to the straight- 



152 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. xvi. 

forward proceeding of the King, who, finding himself put off 
with excuses of the clumsiest manufacture, asked the courtier 
Schafgotsch the plain question whether the ceremonial of the 
right hand w^as or was not the cause of the delay. He extorted 
for once the plain answer. Yes, and gravely proposed an expe- 
dient for obviating the difficulty, which was, that the two sove- 
reigns should meet face to face on horseback, and remain in that 
position, at the head the one of his army, the other of his suite ; 
the one attended by his son, the other, as the head of the Empire, 
by the Electors. This happy expedient was accepted, and the 
interview took place. 

The King's own account of this singular interview is doubtless 
more to be depended upon than the numerous Austrian relations, 
which extol the condescension and cordiality of the Emperor. 
" Of the Electors, the Emperor was only accompanied by the 
Bavarian. Saxony had already quitted him. He had in his 
suite some fifty horsemen, employes, and ministers of his court. 
He was preceded by trumpets, and followed by body guards and 
ten foot attendants. I will not draw you a portrait of the Em- 
peror, for he is well known. He was mounted on a Spanish bay 
horse. He wore an embroidered juste au corpSj a French hat, 
w^ith an agrafe and red and white plumes; a belt mounted with 
sapphires and diamonds ; a sword the same. I made him my 
compliments in Latin, and in few words.* He answered in 
prepared phrases in the same language. Being thus facing each 
other, I presented to him my son, who advanced and saluted him. 
The Emperor did not even put his hand to his hat. I remained 
like one terrified. He used the same behaviour towards the 
senators and Hetmans, and even towards ^ his connexion the 
prince palatine of Belz.f To avoid scandal and public remarks, 
I addressed a few more words to the Emperor, after which I 
turned my horse round ; we saluted, and I retook the route for 

* The King was practised in this language, which he always used in his 
addresses to the Polish diets. When the young Charles XII. of Sweden 
opposed the usual resistance of boyhood to his Latin preceptor, he was 
informed of this fact; and the example of the great soldier proved an 
efficient substitute for flogging. Sobieski learned Spanish at the age of 
fifty. 

f Constantine Wisnowiecki, allied to the Imperial family by the marriage 
of the king Michael with the Archduchess Eleanor. 



CHAP. XVI.] BY THE TURKS. 153 

my camp. The Palatine of Russia* showed my army to the 
Emperor, at his desire ; but our people have been much pro- 
voked, and complain loudly that the Emperor did not deign to 
thank them, even with his hat, for all their pains and privations. 
Since this separation, every thing has suddenly changed ; it is as 
if they knew us no longer. They give us neither forage nor 
provisions. The Pope had sent money for these to the Abbe 
Buonvisi, but he is stopped at Lintz." 

The King does not mention the words of his reply to the Em- 
peror's harangue, '' I am glad. Sire, to have rendered you this 
small service." The Emperor is said two days afterwards to 
have sent, with a present of a sword for Prince James, a clumsy 
apology for the silence and coldness of his demeanour. 

We cannot certainly judge of passages like these by the standard 
of our present modes of European thought and action. There 
may be circumstances under which these apparent air-bubbles 
become ponderable realities. In dealing, for instance, with the 
Emperor of China, the slightest abandonment of a point of eti- 
quette might involve the most serious consequences, and the con- 
cession of a diplomatist could perhaps only be retrieved by the 
guns of an admiral. At the worst we might smile at the pedantic 
tenacity of the courts of Vienna or Versailles of the seventeenth 
century on points of ceremonial and precedence, but no such 
considerations can temper the indignation which the perusal of 
Sobieski's letters excites, at the practical and substantial ingrati- 
tude and neglect he experienced at the hands of Austria from 
the moment that his services ceased to be indispensable. That 
some quarrels and jealousies should arise from the juxtaposition of 
the Sclavonic and Teutonic elements was perhaps inevitable. To 
be cheated, starved, and neglected, is usually the lot of armies 
serving in the territory of an ally whom they cannot openly 
coerce and pillage ; but the Polish sovereign had to endure more 
than this. His sick were denied boats to remove them down the 
river from the pestilential atmosphere of the camp ; his dead, even 
the officers, were denied burial in the public cemeteries. The 

* The appellation of Russia was at this period applied to the province of 
Gallicia. The territories of the Tzar, which have since assumed it, came 
under the general designation of Muscovy. 



154 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. xvi. 

starving soldier who approached the town in search of provisions 
was threatened to be fired upon. The baggage, including that of 
the King, was pillaged — the horses of stragglers on their road to 
rejoin the army carried off by force — men on guard over the 
guns they h,;d taken, robbed of their effects ; and every com- 
plaint treated with cold neglect and every requisition dismissed 
almost without an answer. The royal tents, which before the 
battle, though, as the King observes, spacious enough, could not 
contain the throng of distinguished visitors, were now deserted, 
and the demeanour of the Duke of Lorraine himself and every 
other Austrian authority, showed that this treatment was delibe- 
rate and systematic. It may have been some satisfaction to 
Sobieski, it almost becomes one to his admirers now, to find that 
the Austrian government was impartial in its ingratitude, and 
exercised on others, besides the Poles, its singular talent for 
disgusting and offending those who had done it service. The 
Elector of Saxonv, as we have seen, lost no time in withdrawing 
his person and his troops. The father Aviano departed for Italy, 
disgusted with the intrigues of the court and the licence of the 
camp. The Duke of Saxe Lauenburg retired, offended by the 
only instance in which the Emperor appears to have shown a 
creditable sense of his obligations. The hero of the defence. 
Count Stahremberg, was justly rewarded with 100,000 crowns, 
the golden fleece, and the rank of field-marshal. The Duke of 
Saxe Lauenburg, who had held high command in the late action, 
considered himself ill-used by this promotion over his head of an 
officer inferior to himself, as also to Caprara and to Leslie, in 
length of service. Lastly, the Duke of Lorraine himself had 
as little reason as any one to be satisfied. . The King writes of 
hirn later, more in pity than in anger, " the poor devil has 
neither any of the spoils of w^ar, nor any gratification from the 
Emperor." We have indeed met with no instance but that of 
Stahremberg in which any signal mark of favour or munificence 
was bestowed on any party conspicuous in the late transactions. 
Gold medals and nominations to the dio-nity of state counsellor 
were indeed awarded to many of the city officials. The young 
volunteer, Eugene, was attached to the service for which he had 
quitted that of France by his nomination to the Colonelcy of a 



CHAP. xvi.J BY THE TURKS. 155 

regiment of dragoons which still bears his name ; but this pro- 
motion only took place in December, and^vas rather a retaining 
fee to a young man of high rank and promise than a reward for 
positive service. Kollonitsch received a cardinal's hat from the 
Pope ; and Daun, Sereni, and other distinguished officers, ob- 
tained from the liberality of the city rewards in plate and money, 
more commensurate with the exhausted state of the municipal 
exchequer than with the value of their services ; the sums vary- 
ing from 400 rix-dollars to 100 florins. 

The state of affairs above described affords some reason for 
surprise, that the King should have persevered any further in 
his co-operation with the Imperial troops. He was as free 
to depart as the Emperor of Saxony. The Abbe Coyer sup- 
poses that he still entertained hopes of procuring a bride for his 
son in the person of an Austrian Archduchess, and, as a conse- 
quence of such a connexion, the establishment of his descendants 
on an hereditary throne in Poland. The treatment, however, 
which he experienced at the hands of Austria could have left 
him little reliance on such expectations, and his letters to the 
Queen indicate a higher motive for his perseverance, in a sense 
of the obligation of the oath by which he had bound himself to 
the assistance of the Emperor. This, and his appetite for mili- 
tary success, are sufficient to account for his endurance. The 
Emperor, on the other hand, if we may trust the Abbe, would 
have beard of his departure for Warsaw with pleasure, being 
advised of some Hungarian intrigues for raising up a rival to 
Tekeli in the person of the young Prince James, and placing 
him on the throne of Hungary. There is no evidence to show 
that Sobieski was influenced by any ambition but that of serving 
the common cause of Christianity, and adding to the military 
laurels which, in his case, almost hid the crown. One satis- 
faction Sobieski allowed himself in writing an autograph letter 
to the King of France, to whom, as the writer well knew, the 
tidings it contained would be gall and wormwood. The King 
also made over to the Elector of Bavaria some choice articles of 
the Danish plunder, in the hope that, through him, they might 
find their way to the Dauphiness of France, and to the Tuileries, 
The following Pasquinade of the time is neat and bitter enough 
to deserve insertion here : — 



156 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. xvi. 

Tria Miranda ! 
Omnes Christiani arma sumunt contra Turcam, 

Prseter Christianissimum. 
Omnes filii Ecclesise bellum contra Turcam parant, 

Prseter Primogenitum. 
Omnia animalia laudant Deum ob partam de Turcis victoriam, 

Prseter Galium. 

The endeavours which Louis XIV. had made to detach, at all 
risks to Christendom, the King of Poland from the Austrian 
alliance, and the satisfaction with which he had viewed the 
critical position of the Austrian capital, were no secret. It is 
true that, to preserve appearances, he had raised the siege of 
Luxemburg and forborne an invasion of the Spanish Nether- 
lands on pretence of setting free the King of Spain to assist his 
Austrian relations. These devices, however, deceived no one, 
and it was generally believed that ii was his intention, after the 
humiliation of Austria should have been accomplished, to come 
forward at the head of the large force he was collecting on the 
Rhine as the saviour of Christendom. 

A sovereign more deeply concerned in the issue than Louis, 
the Sultan, was perhaps the better prepared of the two for 
the reception of the unwelcome tidings of the relief of 
Vienna. The report of the confidential emissary despatched 
by him to the camp had been so unfavourable as to dissipate at 
once the expectation of success which no one down to that 
period had dared to represent as doubtful. Every preparation 
indeed had been made at Constantinople for a general illumina- 
tion, and effigies of the Pope and of the principal Christian 
sovereigns had been prepared as materials for a bonfire. The 
report in question raised the Sultan to such ^ pitch of fury, that 
it required the influence of the Mufti to restrain him from 
directing a general massacre of all the Christians in his do- 
minions. It had, however, the further effect of preparing him 
for the news of failure, and before it reached Constantinople, his 
rage had subsided into a deep melancholy. No sudden order for 
the destitution or death of Kara Mustapha betrayed his indigna- 
tion, and the Vizier continued for a while to exercise and to 
abuse the powers with which he had been intrusted. 



CHAP. XVII.] BY THE TURKS. 157 



CHAPTER XYIL 

From the end of September to the end of December, 1683. 

The Emperor's stay in his rescued capital was brief. He quitted 
it for Lintz on the IGth, leaving to the local authorities a 
heavy task to be performed of repair, and reconstruction, and 
purification. The Christian prisoners had been compelled to 
labour in the Turkish trenches, and in like manner Turkish 
captives were now compelled to repair the damage they had con- 
tributed to effect. The events of the siege had shown the danger 
occasioned by the near vicinity of suburban buildings in possession 
of an enemy, and an order was now issued for preventing the 
establishment either of buildings or gardens within a distance of 
600 paces from the city rampart, to which edict the present 
glacis owes its origin. In this, the metropolitan seat of wealth 
and power, the work of restoration proceeded with speed and 
regularity ; the affairs of mankind soon fell into their accustomed 
order, and material objects resumed their former aspect. It was 
far different in the country, where, through whole districts, 
human hands were wanting to build upon the sites of ruined 
villages, to replant the vineyard and orchard, and to restore to 
cultivation the fields which the Tartar had converted into a 
wilderness. It was necessary in many instances for the Govern- 
ment to colonize before it could cultivate, and it required years 
of peace and security to repair the ravages of a^ few hours of 
Turkish occupation. 

The failure of so vast a scheme of invasion produced in the 
minds of the Viennese a reasonable sense of security against any 
reappearance of the horse-tails before their walls. It might be 
long, indeed, before the aggressive power of the Porte should be 
restrained within the limits of a well-defined frontier, and aw^d 
into quiescence by experience of its inability to ccpe with 
Christian Europe. The Turk was still in possession of fortresses, 



158 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap. xvii. 

such as Neuhausel, within a few hours' march of the capital, 
but another investment of Vienna was an event not within the 
scope of reasonable calculation. It was therefore now deter- 
mined to remove from public gaze a conspicuous and not very 
creditable memorial of the former liability of the city to the 
insult which it had twice experienced : namely, the crescent, 
which, since the siege of 1529, had surmounted the spire of the 
Christian Temple of St. Stephen. It was generally held to have 
been placed there on an understanding with Soliman, that, like 
the black flag, which in modern warfare frequently protects an 
hospital, it should exempt the building beneath from the fire of 
an attack. Some writers, jealous of their country's honour, have 
indeed disputed this version of its origin. Be this as it may, the 
talisman had lost its virtue, for the malignity of Kara Mustapha 
had selected the cathedral as a principal object for his batteries, 
though the Turkish gunners had only succeeded in two or 
three instances in disturbing the celebration of its services, 
and the return of killed and wounded in its congregations exhi- 
bited only one old woman whose leg had been carried off by a 
shell. At the suggestion, according to some authors, of Sobieski, 
but more probably of Kollonitsch, the crescent was now removed 
to the arsenal, where it is still preserved, and replaced in the first 
instance by an iron cross, which being fixed was shortly carried 
away by a storm. In 1587, a rotatory double eagle of brass was 
placed on the pinnacle, which it still adorns. 



CHAP. xviTi.] BY THE TURKS. 159 



CHAPTER XYIII. 

Though the main interest of the drama ceases wUh the liberation 
of the city, the fate of a principal actor, Kara Mustapha, remains 
to be noticed ; and some further events of the campaign will be 
found neither deficient in historical importance nor destitute of 
instruction to the soldier. 

The situation of the Polish army, and the general prospect 
of affairs some days after the battle, can hardly be better in- 
dicated than by the following extract from Sobieski's letter to 
the Queen of the 17th September. After giving a long list of 
the grievances and sufferings of his people, whose condition on 
the banks of the Danube he compares to that of the Israelites 
by the waters of Babylon, he proceeds: — "You will extract 
from this Jetter a gazette article, with the understanding, how- 
ever, that all my topics of grievance are to be kept out of sight. 
We must not forget the old adage of Kochanouski, ' the man 
who knows not how to conceal his disgust makes his enemy to 
laugh.' Say only that the commissaries of the Emperor have 
deceived our army with respect to the provisions and forage 
which they promised us, and for which the Pope has destined 
considerable sums ; that the bridge is not finished ; that the army 
suflfers much ; that the Imperial troops are still under the w^alls 
of Vienna ; that the Saxons have retired ; that the King is in ad- 
vance ; that his light cavalry is pressing the enemy; that if it 
were not for the horrible devastation of the country not a Turk 
would have escaped ; that the King is constantly sending to the 
Emperor to press him to enter the enemy's territory and to 
invest at the least two fortresses ; that Tekeli has sent emissaries 
to me submitting everything to my decision ; and so on." 

Of the Hungarian fortresses at this time in the hands of the 
Turks, Neuhausel and Gran were the two which the Imperial 
commanders were most desirous to reduce. Neuhausel derived 
importance from its proximity to Presburg and Vienna, and 



160 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap, xviii. 

from its situation in face of that vast Schiitt island of the Danube 
of which the fortress of Komorn fortunately gave the Imperialists 
the command. Gran, often mentioned by authors by its Latin 
name Strigonium, was situated lower down the river on the 
right bank of the Danube. Its bridge, protected on the northern 
shore by the fortress of Barkan, gave the Turks the power of 
operating on both sides of the river ; and a strong body of 
Turkish cavalry had thrown itself into the tete-du-pont, under 
the command of Kara Mehemet, a young Pacha, worthy, by his 
courage, of the charge of a post of so much military importance. 
Some difference of opinion seems to have arisen in the first 
instance between the King and the Imperial generals, the 
former inclining to postpone operations against Neuhausel and 
to move at once upon Gran, with the view of ulterior operations 
against the still more important city of Pesth, to which the 
Vizier had transferred his head quarters. The King, however, 
acquiesced in the views of the Imperialists, which were in- 
fluenced by the proximity of Neuhausel to the capital ; but the 
decision of both was overruled by events. In any case it be- 
came necessary to throw a bridge over the river in the neigh- 
bourhood of Komorn, and the King complains in his letters of 
the delay in this operation. He was anxious to cross the river, 
both for the purpose of further encounter with the enemy and 
from the exhausted state of the country on the left bank. The 
passage of the river was effected on the 4th or 5th October. 
The troops, during their occupation of the rich island of the 
Schiitt, had been better supplied with forage and provisions, but 
had suffered dreadfully from the various forms of contagious 
and deadly disease for which the autumnal climate of Hungary 
is notorious. Sobieski remarks that the Germans, generally more 
delicate than the Poles, suffered less by the prevalent fever 
which decimated officers and men in his own army. He describes 
his own people as dissatisfied with the rich wines of Hungary, 
and pining for their beer and smoky cottages. Drunkenness, it 
would appear, was a preservative against the prevalent fever, 
and possibly the Poles were less addicted than the Germans to 
this prophylactic. Many Polish officers of distinction were 
swept off. 

The Turks, meanwhile, were little in condition to take ad- 



CHAP, XVIII.] BY THE TURKS. 161 

vantage of Austrian delays, or Polish sickness, for the purpose 
of stemming the tide of victory and pursuit. Detractors from 
the reputation of Sobieski have not been wanting to censure the 
laxity of the pursuit, and to ascribe it to the attractions of the 
Vizier's tents. That he was fond of money his admirers have 
not denied. His apologists have alleged in his defence, on this 
head, the temptation to which the holder of a life interest in a 
crown is exposed to accumulate wealth for those descendants 
who on his decease may sink into a private station. Perhaps a 
law of celibacy would be no unreasonable condition of elective 
sovereignty. No female reader of his letters will, however, 
blame the complacency with which he describes the treasures 
destined for the boudoir of the wife whom he styles '' his incom- 
parable," but who appears, by her taste for dress and intrigue, to 
have been very comparable indeed to many of her country- 
women. It is unnecessary to detail the many circumstances 
which must have made an active and immediate pursuit of the 
flying foe a military impossibility. It is sufficient to point to the 
forest defiles through which the allied force had toiled for 
three weary days from the Danube to the heights of the Kahlen- 
berg, during which time the horses had fed on nothing but the 
leaves of the trees which impeded their progress. The Yizier's 
first halt was under the walls of Raab ; his first reassertion of 
his authority, which, in the confusion of defeat and flight, had 
been in abeyance, was to select a man he hated as an expiatory 
victim. The veteran Pacha of Pesth, whose original counsels, 
if followed, would have probably led to less fatal results, was 
ready to his hand. This old and distinguished man, with 
two other Pachas and the Aga of the Janissaries, were beheaded 
on a charge of cowardice, and some fifty other officers of less 
note strangled. After a halt of three days, employed in such 
proceedings as these, and in rallying and collecting the troops, 
he pursued his march towards Pesth, not unmolested by the 
garrison of Raab, but throwing reinforcements into Neuhausel 
and Gran as he passed. 

The Polish army had, as has been stated, crossed the Danube 
^ear Komorn on the 4tli and 5th, and the Imperial cavalry had 
followed ; but the mass of the infantry was still behind. The 
King took the advance with a small body of his ow^n cavalry, 

M 



162 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap, xviii. 

in the hopes of an easy conquest of the Turks, whom he knew to 
have hastily occupied the tete-du-pont of Bsirlmm, Forgettino-, in 
his contempt for a beaten enemy, and in his anxiety to seize the 
Turkish bridge of boats hear Barkan, the first rules of military 
science, and pressing forward without support or reserve, and 
without due security for co-operation from the more cautious 
Lorraine, he sacrificed some of his best troops, and narrowly 
escaped, in his own person and that of his son, the last penalty a 
soldier can pay for imprudence. The affair began with the 
advanced guard, which, according to the King's rather excul- 
patory but graphic report to his wife, committed itself prema- 
turely, and contrary to his orders, in a skirmish with the Turks 
near Barkan. Some accounts state that the latter were craft ' 
enough to lure them on, by causing a herd of oxen to retire 
slowly before them. The Palatine of Russia, proceeding to the 
front, found it necessary to send in all haste for assistance, and 
the King in person brought up to the rescue his whole dispos- 
able force, making his numbers in the field some 5000 men, 
without infantry or artillery. He would have done more 
wisely to have left his advanced guard to their fate. He found 
it routed and disorganized, and himself with his small force, not 
yet deployed, within some hundred paces of an enemy flushed 
wdth success, and immensely superior in numbers. The Palatine 
of Russia, who saw the danger, implored him to leave the field. 
He replied to this invitation by charging at the head of his best 
available squadron. The charge succeeded, but at the same 
moment the centre and left wing, though not yet engaged with 
the enemy, gave way, and the conflict degenerated into a race 
for life and death. The young Prince, who in this affair, as in 
the battle of Vienna, had followed his father like his shadow, 
received from him a positive command to fly. The King him- 
self lingered till every effort he could make to rally his people 
had utterly failed, and he was left with six companions. To two 
of these, Czerkass, a Lithuanian gentleman, and a nameless soldier 
of heavy cavalry, he himself mainly attributed his salvation. 
The latter, who shot down with his carbine one of two horsemen 
who had come up with the King, and wounded the other, 
perished ; the former lived to enjoy a pension of 500 crowns 
paid to him by the Queen on every anniversary of this disastrous 



CHAP. XVIII.] BY THE TURKS. 163 

skirmish. For some two miles and more the furious race con- 
tinued : the Palatine of Pomerelia fell, horse and man, and was 
cut to pieces. The ground was heavy, and intersected with deep 
furrows : the King, though not so inactive as the French ambas- 
sador had described him, was both tall and corpulent ; and when 
at length he pulled up and rallied his people on the cavalry and 
guns of the German troops, which at the instance of the Austrian 
General Dunnewald, attached in this affair to the staff of the King, 
were coming up to his support, breathless, and covered with 
bruises from rough contact with the companions of his flight, he 
lay for a while exhausted on a heap of straw. The Abbe Coyer 
has a story of the King's witnessing the escape of his son, as he 
^eft his cloak in the hand of a Turkish horseman. The Kins: 
expressly states that Fanfan, as he always calls his son, was 
bien en avant with the grand ecuyer Mateinski, to whom the 
Abbe and others also have attributed the preservation of the 
King. Most of the King's personal attendants, pages, &c., 
perished ; he mentions a negro boy, a young Hungarian, master 
of several languages, but dwells with most interest on the fate of 
a little Calmuck, a famous rider in the King's hare-coursing 
pastimes.* In spite of his horsemanship he was captured, 
but by some strange accident spared by the Turks. After their 
subsequent defeat he was found in their camp and recognised by 
the Poles, but an unlucky German cut him down. There are 
many iustaiices in which the greatest commanders have had to 
ride for their lives. In our own times the list would comprise 
names no less than those of Napoleon, Murat, and Bliicher ; 
but the Cossack hourra of Brenne, and the skirmish near 
Leipzick, were accidents of warfare which no prudence could 
avert, and the gallant charge of Ligny few would be found to 

* In the intervals of war and business the King had always been devoted 
to the chase. One of liis objects of pursuit was the aurochs, now confined 
to a single forest of Lithuania, where alone it continues its species under im- 
perial protection. One of the most eminent of living geologists, Sir R. I. 
Murchison, has broached a theory, founded at least on a profound investiga- 
tion of the features of the district, that the species is a sole survivor of one 
of those great geological changes which have obliterated other forms of 
animal life. Sobieski's Queen wore a girdle of the skin of this animal. 
Down to a recent period it was an object of royal chase in Poland. Sir C. 
Hanbury Williams, in a letter from Brodi, describes a royal battue in which 
many of them were surrounded and driven over a steep bank into the river. 

M 2 



164 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap, xviii. 

censure. The race of Barkan is historically valuable for the 
lesson it conveys of caution in the hour of success. An adher- 
ence to the simplest rules of military science would have saved 
two thousand lives. Sobieski's character shines out conspicu- 
ously in the manner in which he took this severe cheek. Like 
the old Prussian of 1815, though bruised and stiffened, and 
scarcely able to sit his horse, he was up and ready on the follow- 
inc day, pressing the Duke of Lorraine to move against the Turks. 
In his religious convictions he was earnest, perhaps to the verge 
of bigotry, and in his letters to his wife in tracing the disaster to 
the judgment of Providence on the licence and crimes of the 
army, he passes over rather lightly the share which his own in- 
caution had in producing it. 

It required all the magic of Sobieski's influence to repair the 
moral consequences of this discomfiture in his own ranks, in which 
at first an ominous inclination displayed itself to concede the post of 
honour, the right of the line, to the German troops. We can hardly 
believe, on the sole authority of Rycaut, that the King himself 
was disposed to yield to this suggestion. His letter, written on 
the field, breathes nothing but an impatience for tiie arrival of 
the imperial infantry. Lorraine, on iiis part, seems to have 
needed no pressing, and it was determined to attack the enemy 
on the 9th. The young Pacha, w^io had struck so serious a 
blow at the veteran conqueror of Choczim and Vienna, now 
himself fell into the error of abiding the chances of unequal 
battle ; for though he had been strongly reinforced from Gran, 
he had but 25,000 men to oppose to some 50,000. Tekeli, too 
wdse to believe the Vizier's message annpuncing the total de- 
struction of the Christian army, and engaged in tortuous nego- 
tiations with Sobieski, was hovering almost within sight, but 
kept aloof from action. The Pacha fell into the still graver 
error of meeting the enemy with a chain of lulls on his right, 
the river of Gran in his rear, and no retreat but by the bridge 
over the Danube. The consequence of this arrangement was a 
defeat, rendered bloody and complete by the failure of the bridge, 
which gave way under the fugitives. Barkan itself was carried 
by storm. Kara Mohammed himself escaped, but the Pacha of 
Karamania was killed, and the Pacha of Silistria taken. The 
amount of the Turkish loss is variously stated. The Poles, eager 



CHAP. xviiT.] BY THE TURKS. 165 

for veng-eance, and excited by the sight of the heads of their coun- 
trymen stuck on the palisades of the fort, gave little quarter, and 
artillery was brought to bear upon the crowds who attempted to 
swim the river. This success was purchased at the loss of 400 
Poles and 70 of the imperial troops. Sobieski, in the moment of 
victory, writes of it as a victory greater than that of Vienna — an 
exaggeration only to be excused by the excitement of the mo- 
ment. Its importance, however, was manifested by the speedy 
fall of Gran, the seat of the Hungarian primacy, containing the 
tomb of Stephen, the first Christian King of Hungary, but 
which from the year 1605 had been desecrated by Turkish occu- 
pation. The Turkish bridge having been demolished during the 
battle, the Imperialists brought down their own bridge of boats 
from Komorn, which was ready for the passage of the troops a 
league above the city on the 13th. The town w^as carried by 
storm. The garrison, some 4000 strong, which had retired into 
the citadel, surrendered on the 27th, on condition of their safe 
conveyance to Buda, with their women and children, and re- 
taining their small arms. The Yizier, on receiving at Buda 
intelligence of the fall of Gran, departed in haste for Belgrade, 
but left with Kara Mehemet an order for the execution of the 
officers who had signed the surrender. His own bloody rule was 
meanwhile drawing to a close. His first reports and excuses for 
his failure before Vienna had been received at the court of 
Adrianople with simulated favour, and his messenger had re- 
turned with the usual tokens of royal approbation, a sword and 
a pelisse. Influence, however, both male and female, was busy 
for his destruction ; the friends of the murdered Pacha of Pesth, 
and all those who had originally opposed the expedition, were 
powerful and zealous. Tekeli, and the dying Sultana mother, 
Valide, threw their influence into the scale. At length the 
vacillation of the Sultan was overcome, and a chamberlain of 
the court rode out from Adrianople with the simple order to 
return as soon as might be with the head of Kara Mustapha. 
The officer, on approaching Belgrade, communicated his mission 
to the Aga of the Janissaries, who gave his prompt acquiescence 
and ready assistance to the objects of the mission. The transac- 
tion was conducted, on the part of the servants of the crown, 



1 

166 TWO SIEGES OF VIENNA, [chap, xviii. 

with that decent privacy and convenient expedition which usually 
attend the execution of Turkish justice, and submitted to by the 
patient with the quiet dignity with which the predestinarian doc- 
trine of Islam arms its votaries against all accidents. The in- 
signia of authority were politely demanded and quietly resigned. 
The carpet was spread, the short prayer uttered, the bowstring 
adjusted. In a few moments the late dispenser of life and death, 
the uncontrolled commander of 200,000 men, was a corpse, and 
his head on the road to Adrianople. It met with some subse- 
quent adventures ; for, having been returned to Belgrade by the 
Sultan, and deposited in a mosque, it was discovered after the 
surrender of that city to the Christians, and forwarded by them 
to the Bishop Kollonitsch. Tiie prelate made over the grisly 
memorial of the man, who had threatened to send his own head 
on a lance's point to the Sultan, to the arsenal of Vienna, where 
it still keeps its place among the other trophies of along struggle 
of race and religion. 

With the catastrophe of so leading a personage this work may 
properly reach the termination which its limits now demand. 
For the winter march by which Sobieski withdrew his forces to 
his own frontier, and the fortresses which he picked up by the 
way, his negotiations with Tekeli, .^^ his passing successes over 
the Turks, the reader who wishes to pursue the subject will do 
well to consult his correspondence ^o often quoted, and the 
ample work of M. de Salvandy. From the above pages, con- 
cerned as they have been with a principal passage in the public 
career of one of the greatest characters in modern history, some 
faint idea may be derived of his qualities as a soldier. As a 
king, a statesman, an orator, and a man of letters, he must be 
estimated from other and fuller sources. After learning what he 
was in all these respects, we shall be prone to conjecture what 
he might have been. As a husband and a father, if he had not 
married a bad and mischievous woman, daturam progeniem 
vitiosiorem — as a commander, if, instead of leading ill-disciplined 
levies to transient victories by the example and personal exposure 
of a partisan, he had brandished the staff of a Marlborough or an 
Eugene at the head of a permanent and organized force — as a 
king and a statesman, if his better fortune had placed him at the 



CHAP. XVIII.] BY THE TURKS. 167 

head, not of a horde of turbulent, intriguing, and ungovernable 
slave-owners, but of a civilized, free, and united people — it is 
scarcely too much to suppose that he might have realized the 
greater projects which it is known entered into his large con- 
ception, that the Turk would have been rolled back upon Asia, 
and that Greece might have dated her emancipation from the 
seventeenth century. 



. .'"^i^-v 



APPENDIX. 



No. 1. 

The number of pieces of artillery fur- 
nished from the imperial arsenal of 
Vienna for the defence in 1683 was 
262. The thirty years' war had led to 
many improvements in the construction 
and use of artillery. Gustavus Adol- 
phus and Wallenstein had both efPected 
important alterations, and in 1650 a 
Jesuit of Warsaw had invented the 
elevating screw as a substitute for the 
quoin. Whatever improvement, how- 
ever, had taken place in the system as 
applied to field movements, it would 
appear that for purposes of stationary 
defence it was still one of much com- 
plexity and confusion. The 262 pieces 
used at Vienna were of no less than 26 
denominations and calibres, the capa- 
city of the latter ranging from 1 lb. to 
48, and in the case of some large pieces 
called boiler or poller, used as mortars 
for vertical fire and discharging stone 
shot, from 60 to 200 lbs. There were 
of these four of 200, two of 150, five 
of 100, and ten of 60. Fifty other 
pieces furnished from the city arsenal 
were planted, not on the defences, but 
at various points in the city, and worked 
by 100 men of the burgher force. Of 
these hundred volunteer artillerists 16 
were killed and 5 of the pieces ruined : 
72 pieces in all had been rendered un- 
serviceable at the close of the siege. 

Thirty-seven officers were killed, 
which, considering the frequency of 
assaults and sallies, ojjerations which 
require great personal exposure on the 
part of the leaders, would appear rather 
a small proportion to that of 5000 rank 
and file among the regular troops. 
The loss in action among the citizens 



is scarcely possible to arrive at. The 
only two officers of much distinction 
who fell were the Col. Count Dupigny 
and the engineer, Eimpler. 

The Turkish loss is stated at 48,544. 
It appears to have fallen heaviest on 
the miners, of whom 16,000 perished, 
and 6000 of their artillerists. The 
formidable corps of the Janissaries was 
reduced by a loss of 10,000 : 544 offi- 
cers, including 3 pachas, were also 
killed. As this list is taken from a re- 
turn found in the tent of the Vizier, it 
does not include the loss of the Turks 
in the battle. These statements are 
naturally liable to much allowance for 
inaccuracy from many causes. A com- 
parison of the various sources of in- 
formation leads to a rough conclusion 
that the Vizier sat down before the 
place with about 220,000 men. Of these 
it is supposed not more than 50,000 
regained the Turkish frontier. 



No. 2. — Order of battle of the Christian 
army before Vienna on the I3th Sep- 
tember, 

The left wing was commanded by 
the Duke of Lorraine ; the centre by 
the Elector of Saxony and the Prince 
Christian Louis von Waldeck (it is 
idle to adjoin to these the Bavarian 
Elector, who was present, but had the 
good sense to consign the direction of 
his troops to Waldeck) ; the right wing 
by the Polish Field-Marshal Jablo- 
nowski ; the whole by the King of Po- 
land. The army was drawn up in 
three lines. 



170 



APPENDIX. 



First Line. 

Right wing. — 19 divisions and 4 bat- 
talions of Poles; 8560 cavalry, 3120 
infantry. 

Centre. — 9 divisions, Austrians ; 7 
divisions, Bavarians : 4 divisions, troops 
of the Circles ; 5 battalions, Bavarians ; 
3 battalions, Circles; 5 battalions, 
Saxons; 5768 cavalry, 8600 infantry: 
commanders, the Elector of Saxony and 
the Prince of Waldeck. 

Left wing. — 10 divisions, Austrians ; 
5 divisions, Saxons ; 6 battalions, Aus- 
trians; 5660 cavalry, 4242 infantry; 
commanded by the Duke of Baden. 

Total of first line, 19,788 cavalry, 
15,962 infantry. 

Second Line. 

Right wing. — 6 divisions, Poles ; 8 
divisions, Austrians ; 4 battalions, 
Poles; 5568 cavalry, 3120 infantry: 
commanders, Generals Siniousky and 
Rabatta. 

Centre. — 5 divisions, Bavarians ; 3 
divisions. Circles; 4 battalions, Bava- 
rians, 5 battalions. Circles; 3 batta- 
lions, Saxons ; 6 battalions, Austrians ; 
1725 cavalry, 11,442 infantry: com- 
manders, Field-Marshal Golz and Field- 
Marshal the Prince of Baireuth. 

Left wing. — 4 divisions, Saxons; 8 
divisions, Austrians ; 4528 cavalry : 
commanders, Field-Marshal Leslie and 
Prince Lubomirski. 

Total of second line, 11,819 cavalry, 
12,562 infantry. 

Third Line or Reserve. 

Right wing. — 9 divisions, Poles ; 6 
divisions, Austrians ; 3 divisions, Bava- 
rians ; 3 battalions, Poles ; 1 battalion, 
Bavarians; 6855 cavalry, 2940 in- 
fantry : commanders, great standard- 
bearer Lesno Lescynski and Field- 
Marshal Diinnewald. 

Centre. — 3 battalions, Bavarians; 2 
battalions, Saxons; 2 battalions, Aus- 
trians; 4014 infantry: commander, 
Field-Marshal Leika. 

Lft wing. — 3 divisions, Saxons ; 7 
divisions, Austrians ; 3762 cav^^lry : 



comnaander, Field-Marshal Margrave 
Louis of Baden. 

Total of third line, 10,617 cavalry, 
6954 infantry. 
Total force in the battle — 
Cavalry .... 42,224 
Infantry . . . 35,478 



77,702 

Total of the army, including detach- 
ments — 

Cavalry, 127 divisions . 46,100 
Infantry, 57 battalions . 38,700 



84,800 



Artillery, 168 pieces, of all calibres, of 
which the Austrians counted 70, the 
Saxons 30, the Bavarians 26, the Fran- 
conians 12, and the Poles, 30. It is 
impossible, considering the difficulties 
of the march from Tuln, that all these 
pieces should have been brought into 
action : they were distributed along all 
parts of the line of battle. 

To the above may be added Croats 
and other irregulars, and volunteers 
about 10,000. This detail pi the force 
is extracted from the Military Conver- 
sations Lexicon, art. ' Wien.' 



No. 3. — Anecdotes of the Siege, from a 
Tract by the Advocate Christian W. 
Huhn, an eye-witness. 

In the night of August 2nd some 
troopers of Dupigny's regiment, with 
divers foot soldiers of the garrison, 
made a sally by the covered way at the 
Scottish gate, and returned with forty- 
seven head of oxen and a captured 
Turk. The cattle were allotted partly 
to the wounded and sick soldiers, and 
partly to the captors, who made their 
gain from them, inasmuch as meat, 
which when the siege began had fetched 
one grosch the lb., rose afterwards to 
nine and more, and a fresh egg did not 
wait for a customer at half a dollar. 
Whosoever also fancied Italian cookery 
might purchase of one of the women 
who sat in the high market a roof hare 
(cat); roast and larded, for one florin. 



APPENDIX. 



171 



to be washed down with a cup of mus- 
cat wine at the Italian vintners ; and 
truth to say, this animal, when the 
sweetness of the flesh was tempered 
with the salted lard, was an unusual, 
indeed, but not an unacceptable morsel. 
The 9th August was a fine clear day, 
on which a young and spirited Turk 
chose to disport himself for bravado on 
a caparisoned horse, performing strange 
antics with a lance in his right hand. 
While he was caracoling at a distance 
of full 300 paces from the counterscarp, 
Henry Count von Kielmansegge, who 
hapi ened to be with his foresters on 
the Karnthner bastion, took such good 
aim at him with a fowling-piece that 
he jumped up with a spring from the 
saddle and fell dead amid shouts and 
laughter from the besieged. A lucky 
shot of the same kind was executed by 
a student of the university, who sent a 
bullet through the head of a 1 urk near 
the counterscarp palisade, and dragged 
the body to him with a halberd. 
Having learned from experience of 
others that the Turks, either to 
strengthen the stomach, or when mor- 
tally wounded, to rob the Christians of 
their booty, were accustomed to roll up 
their ducats together and sw-allow 
them, without further ceremony he 
ripped up the corpse and found six 
ducats so rolled up within it. The 
head he cut off and bore it round the 
city upon a lance-point as a spectacle 
of his ovation. In the assault of the 
17th August a common soldier, having 
mastered and beheaded a Turk, and 
finding 100 ducats upon him sewed up 
in a dirty cloth, as one who had never 
seen so much money together before, 
went about the city like one distracted, 
clapping his hands and showing his 
booty to all he met, encouraging them 
by his example to win the like, as 
though it rained money from Heaven. 
On the 13th September, the day fol- 
lowing the relief of the city, the Poles 
being masters of the Turkish camp, 
many soldiers, citizens, and inhabitants, 
while as yet no gate was opened, clam- 
bered down over the breaches and by 
the secret sallyports to pick up what 
they might of provisions, ammunition, 



or other articles of small value. The 
King of Poland and his people having 
fallen on the military chest and the 
Vizier's tent, had carried off many 
millions in money, and the Vizier's 
war-horse, his quivers, bows, and 
arrows, all of countless value, together 
with the great standard of their Pro- 
phet, inscribed with Turkish cha- 
racters, and two horsetail standards. 
I, with many others who had been en- 
rolled in a volunteer body during the 
siege, thought to pick up our share of 
the spoil. I, therefore, gained the 
counterscarp by the Stuben gate, pass- 
ing between the ruined palisades on 
horseback to the Turkish camp. I did 
not, however, dare to dismount, by 
reason of the innumerable quantity of 
flies and vermin, which, although at so 
advanced a time of the month of Sep- 
tember, swarmed up from the bodies of 
more than 20,000 dead horses and 
mules, so as to darken the air, and so 
covering my horse, that not the space 
of a needle point remained free from 
them, the which was so insufferable to 
him, that he began to plunge and kick 
in front and rear, so that I was fain to 
get me clear of the press and make my 
way back to the city, but not till I had 
persuaded a passer-by to reach to me 
the bow and arrows of one who lay 
there, and also the cap of a Janissary, 
and some books which lay about, and 
which had been plundered in the 
country, and secured them in my 
saddle-bags. After the which I re- 
entered the city, not as one ovans on 
foot, but triuwphans on horseback with 
my spolia. I had no want of prede- 
cessors before or followers behind, for 
every one who had legs to carry him 
had betaken himself to the camp to 
plunder it. Although I had gained 
the counterscarp and the inner de- 
fences, I passed a good hour making 
my way through the pass, and my 
unruly horse was compelled to move 
step by step for such time before I 
could extricate him and regain my 
quarters. 



172 



APPENDIX. 



No. 4. — Specification of the Christians 
carried off into Turkish slavery out 
of Hungary^ Austria; and the ad- 
jacent districts in 1683. From a 
contemporary MS. 

Old men 6,000 

Women 11,215 

Unmarried women, 26 
years of age at the 
oldest, of whom 204 
were noble. . , . 14,922 



Children, boys and girls, 
the oldest between 4 
and 5 years of age . 26,093 





Total . . . 


57 


220 


Villages 


and hamlets 






burnt 


in the Viennese 






territoi 


T . . . ■. 


4 


,092 


In that of Presburg 




871 



4,936 



THE END, 



M-' 



Lurtdori ; i'riuted by William Clo;ves and Son'.^, StamfoHl'alrest. 



■±Mf 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



022 053 862 A 



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